Guernica, April 2016
A photograph of what used to be a public gym, Chernobyl, 2008.Image by Flickr user Philippe Simpson.
"The dichotomy between a singular catastrophic moment and something that plays out over huge expanses of time is false. When I really think about it, what was 9/11 but a punctuated moment in the sprawling disaster of policy, human rights, religion, economics, and basic understanding that we have come to call terrorism? It reaches back to the Crusades and extends to some future point, beyond ISIS, somewhere that we have yet to determine. It encapsulates Lockerbie, Oklahoma City, and the Syrian Civil War. The World Trade Center attacks, and the deaths and disease wrought by them, can be added to all of the other end-products of failed states, neoliberal policies, globalization and religious intolerance."