How soon we choose to forget.
From the happy sidewalks of Rye Playland to the gun-ravaged streets of Brooklyn, post-West Indian Day Parade, the lessons of 9/11 have faded from view.
Ten years ago yesterday, we were a city united by blood and loss. We knew that if we, as a people, were to prevail in the darkest hours in the nation’s history, we had to live.
And if that meant everything had to change, so be it. It meant standing in endless security lines, undergoing invasive body scans at airports. It meant obeying those in authority in ingratiating ways that impatient New Yorkers previously could not stomach. But we agreed. If we were to survive, we must be as one.
Time and relative peace has changed all that. As recent incidents prove, depressingly, we are no longer a land of “We.’’ We’ve devolved into a splintered and chaotic place of “Me! Me! Me!’’
At Rye Playland in Westchester, a group of 3,000 Muslims celebrated the end of Ramadan on Aug. 30. But when 17-year-old Ola Salem from Brooklyn was told she could not, for fear of strangulation, wear her hijab, or head scarf, on the Dragon Coaster (yarmulkes and baseball caps are banned, as well), did Ola say:
A. “Thanks for saving my life!’’
B. “I’ll ride the Slime Bucket instead.’’ Or,
C. “This has nothing to do with head gear. This is my religion!’’
Ola chose C.
Tragically, after the girl issued the battle cry of religious bigotry, a fist-throwing melee ensued, leading to the arrest of 15 people.
Of course, this had nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with identity politics that, ironically, sprang up years after 9/11. As Forbes magazine pointed out, head scarves are not required by the Koran. But long after 9/11, the hijab has grown into a must-have accessory — separating “us’’ against “them.’’ And safety? Risking one’s life seems a small concern when screaming, “racial profiling!’’
On Eastern Parkway after the West Indian Day Parade on Labor Day, City Councilman Jumaane Williams (pictured) and Kirsten John Foy, an aide to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, walked through a frozen zone toward an event at the Brooklyn Museum. From the men’s telling of it — cops won’t comment because the incident is under investigation — they were waved through barricades, then stopped by cops who apparently never got the memo that these guys were VIPs.
The men admit they argued. (Rudely? Can you argue nicely?) They tried to pass. Then, they were knocked to the ground and handcuffed, but let go as soon as their identities were established.
Did Williams and Foy say:
A. “Sorry about the confusion, officers.”
B. “I’ll listen to your orders next time.’’ Or,
C. “If I did not look the way I look,’’ said Williams, who is black, “we are sure things would have been handled differently.’’
You know the choice.
A high-ranking law-enforcement source suggested there might be an explanation other than profiling. Tensions were high among cops, then dealing with dozens of weekend shootings and gunshots at the parade. The men’s entitled attitudes did not help, regardless of race.
“It could be partly ego,’’ on Williams’ and Foy’s part, said the source.
This all seems a needless distraction. Some folks really want to kill us.
An AP poll released last week found that Americans were willing to give up certain freedoms in the name of security. Fully 71 percent of skittish folks favored surveillance cameras in public places, and 58 percent approved of full-body scans at airports.
On the other hand, we don’t want the government reading e-mails sent inside the US without a warrant, although half of us approve of warrantless reading of e-mails sent outside the country.
It takes good intelligence and police work to save us. Ten years after 9/11, the AP put out a head-scratching series of stories complaining that the NYPD had targeted places such as Islamic bookstores and nightclubs in its fight against terror. Really?
A bookstore may be just the place “to defeat a homegrown terrorist like like Matin Siraj from plotting to bomb Herald Square,’’ Commissioner Ray Kelly told a Manhattan Institute conference.
“We’re protecting the city in a lawful manner,’’ said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
Ten years after 9/11, we have survived. Sometimes, it seems, in spite of ourselves.
Put Uzbek glamour gal in the slammer
Fashion is out in Uzbekistan. Child slavery is in.
Gulnara “GooGoosha’’ Karimova, designing daughter of murderous Uzbeki dictator Islam Karimov — a guy who once boiled a political rival alive — is a high-ranking official in Daddy Dearest’s government. The jet-setting junior beast, 39, had planned to take on the rags and human-rights worlds Thursday at New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.
But a day after The Post broke the story, Fashion Week producer IMG canceled the obscene display of cunning, embroidered trims and traditional flowing Uzbeki blends of cotton and silk sold under the Guli brand name. Human-rights groups say children in Uzbekistan are forced to leave school to pick cotton — like that used to make the demented designer’s duds.
Couldn’t the glam monster be arrested in New York?
Proof: ‘Rape cop’ panel was a jury of our fears
It brings me no joy to learn I was right about the woman-hating jurors who acquitted two NYPD officers of raping a drunken lady.
In a bizarre online exposé, juror Patrick Kirkland drips with disdain for the woman who accused fired Officer Kenneth Moreno of raping her while his idiot partner, Franklin Mata, stood guard. Kirkland said panelists agreed during ultra-speedy deliberations in May that the wasted, 27-year-old fashion exec may have wanted it! Afterward, the junk juror was among those who dined with Moreno to celebrate his victory.
Jurors convicted the cops of misdemeanor official misconduct for trying to cover up the lusty night. I guess no one had medals to pin on them.
Just can’t ‘bare’ tacky tiki
He’s aging, unemployed, sometimes drunk and frequently nude. Now creepy Tiki Barber ought to shut his ginormous yap.
The ex-Giant fled football in his prime, got canned by NBC, and dumped his wife while pregnant with his twins. Now, he wants back on the playing field. But no team with any working brain cells would sign him.
Tiki told Sports Illustrated in the spring that catting around with now-fiancée Traci Lynn Johnson, 24 — in the attic of agent Mark Lepselter — was like surviving the Holocaust. “Lep’s Jewish, and it was like a reverse Anne Frank thing.” Good Lord.
Traci told Maxim that when Tiki gets hammered, “he likes to walk around the house naked.’’
The mental image of the out-of-shape, tasteless and drunken jock, 36, cavorting, sans skivvies, makes me think that poor, discarded ex-wife Ginny dodged a large bullet here.
A chilling thought
The Islanders have found a sharp way to endear themselves to fans who refused to pay for a new hockey arena: They’re pushing tattoos.
Hockey lovers may now slink home with permanent souvenirs courtesy of Lou’s Tattoo, the first parlor to set up shop in the halls of a pro sports arena. Now fans will have even more to regret.