A few days ago marked the twenty fifth anniversary of the crashing down of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center.
I remember walking up to the viewing gallery with my father twelve years before they fell. He was an engineer, and as we rose higher and higher, he explained how the gigantic towers had been built.
“They are impregnable,” he said proudly.
Engineers are allowed such moments. Writers make sweeping statements with words. Engineers make them with steel and concrete.
I am glad my father had already passed away when the towers fell. The sight would have broken his heart. It broke millions of hearts across the world, but for him it would also have shattered something he had believed about human engineering.
Nothing is impregnable.
Not buildings.
Not governments.
Not alliances.
Not even the gentleman who has surrounded himself with twenty security guards, fifty cameras and enough barricades to stop his own conscience from entering.
My mind went to leaders across the world, including ours, and to the powerful group gathered in the capital. There they stood for their photographs, holding one another’s arms and smiling as if the photographer had just announced that history had been permanently postponed.
“Closer, gentlemen,” said the photographer.
They moved closer.
“Hold hands.”
They held hands.
“Smile.”
They smiled.
“Excellent. Now nobody can defeat you.”
At least, that is what the photograph seemed to suggest.
Perhaps the BRICS believe they cannot fall apart. After all, they are called BRICS. The name itself sounds solid. You can almost imagine each leader arriving with a trowel, a bag of cement and a speech declaring that their wall will last forever.
But bricks fell that September morning faster than a thunderclap.
The lesson was not that engineering had failed. The lesson was that permanence is an illusion human beings love to purchase, preferably with public money.
Every ruler imagines his chair has been bolted to eternity. Every alliance believes its handshake is stronger than history. Every empire commissions an impressive photograph shortly before somebody discovers the exit door.
Photoshoots do not make leaders immortal. Holding arms does not make alliances impregnable. Nor do parades, slogans, enormous statues or television anchors shouting that the nation has never been stronger.
Strength lies elsewhere.
It lies in humility. It lies in compassion. It lies in listening to the weakest voice in the room, quite often when the owner of that voice dresses different. It lies in justice that is genuine and kindness that is not performed for cameras.
Brick and mortar can rise magnificently. They can touch clouds and impress engineers like my dad.
But they all fall.
Love alone lives on.
And unlike our leaders, it does not need a photoshoot to prove it exists...!
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