Naming the Dead
David Simpson
Among the many things that changed after 11 September was the policy on obituaries in the New York Times. Since the attack on the World Trade Center, the newspaper has been printing fifteen or so brief remembrances a day of some of the approximately five thousand people who died in the towers, in the planes and during the rescue efforts. The leaders of corporations and other more or less public figures who are ordinarily assured a place on the obituary page continue to appear there. The full page of photographs and memorials is for the firefighters, window-cleaners, janitors and waiters whose lives and deaths would normally have gone unrecorded by the most widely circulated newspaper in the United States, the newspaper of record for much of the nation. The Times is declaring itself as a paper for all New Yorkers, all Americans, and is paying proper homage to the ubiquity of death and the mournful democracy of grief. A parallel series of memorials to those killed in the attack on the Pentagon also appeared in the paper, part of the separate section devoted day after day to the events of 11 September and their consequences.
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Letters
Vol. 23 No. 23 · 29 November 2001
From Bernard Wasserstein
David Simpson thinks (LRB, 15 November) that 'surely this one event' – the attack on the World Trade Center – 'cannot stand as adequate absolution for or empirical equivalent to the ravaged places of the world in whose destinies we have been implicated, and which we show no signs of ceasing to violate.' What, pray, would be 'adequate absolution' in the eyes of Mr Simpson? How many more bombings does he require against those, who, as he puts it, 'go on carrying the torch for trade in a world centred on New York'? Presumably those requiring 'absolution' do not inhabit the University of California, Davis, where, we are told, Mr Simpson instructs the young – so he, at any rate, is safe. May God (or his/her 'empirical equivalent') absolve him for this sacrilege – and you for publishing it.
Bernard Wasserstein
University of Glasgow
Vol. 24 No. 1 · 3 January 2002
From Lynsay Gott
I was annoyed by David Simpson's remark that all, or most, Americans agree that it is wrong 'to suggest that suicide bombers are not cowards', and that it is right for the President to call bin Laden 'the evil one' (LRB, 15 November 2001). Yes, there has been a weird wave of patriotism here recently, but I don't think it is fair to lump all Americans in the pro-Bush camp when there is so much disagreement among us concerning this Administration and its actions in relation to recent events. I for one am not 'comfortable' with anything the illiterate buffoon from Texas has to say.
And though I liked Simpson's examination of the practices involving the memories of the dead, I thought one possible view of the New York Times obituaries of those who died in the World Trade Center was overlooked. As Simpson writes, they do indeed diminish the class and station differences among the dead, as they disregard any unhappy elements of the victims' lives. But do they not also, by showing the smiling faces of the dead alongside anecdotes about kittens and children, serve to add fuel to the fire of hatred towards terrorists (or perhaps more frightening, towards all Arab peoples) that is needed to foster support for the war? I may be an overly cynical person who sees propaganda everywhere, but the New York Times articles are just a small part of the media inundation of images, memories, anecdotes and 'why you should hate terrorists' lessons that I have to endure every time I leave my house or make the mistake of turning on the television. I cannot help but feel that someone is trying to tell me how I should feel as an American about 11 September and about our bouncy, frolicking Presidential figurehead. I can think of no worse way to honour the dead than to turn them into tools of propaganda and war.
Lynsay Gott
Lexington, Kentucky
From Rod Edmond
David Simpson refers to the 'smaller wars' of the 19th century, one of which he names as 'the Maori wars (1845-66)'. The normal dating of these wars is 1845-72. By 1863 there were 18,000 British troops in New Zealand. And it is decades since they were called the Maori wars. The naming of battles is the most significant of all forms of memorialisation and rather than naming and blaming the indigenous people who were trying to defend their land and culture, the more neutral 'New Zealand Wars' has long been standard usage.
Rod Edmond
Canterbury, Kent
Editor, ‘London Review’ writes: Don't put the blame on David Simpson. 'Maori wars' was an unfortunate intervention on our part.
