Duty of memory

The 9/11 memorial was realized in order to pay homage to the victims of the attacks.

The tour instructs visitors on what happened on that date, offering testimonies of relatives of the victims or people present at the scene that day, or where simply not in the right place at the right moment.

The 9/11 Memorial is a tribute to those killed on September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center site near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon.  Four planes were hijacked by terrorists of Al Qaeda, two of them hit the Twin Towers, the third hit the Pentagon and the last one crashed into a field, first diverted by the terrorists, and then recovered thanks to a rebellion of the passengers.

Duty is a matter of constraint, of obligation. Memory, on the other hand, is a faculty shared by man. Sensitive memory does not seem to be the object of duty, but rather of a mechanical order. Indeed, we do not have the impression of obeying an order when memories arise in us. Nevertheless, some memories may not be retained automatically, and one must know how to train one's memory to make it work properly. Memory is, therefore, a matter of effort, and this is how we can speak of the "duty to remember".  What justifies the need to fight against forgetting?

If there is a duty to remember, it is, on the one hand, to preserve the trace of the past and to institute a history, on the other hand, to recognize the debt contracted by the present towards the past, and finally, to render justice and repair past errors.

There are certain crimes that must not be forgotten in order not to commit them again. There are tragic historical events that we have a duty not to forget to avoid their repetition. Forgetting is a natural faculty of memory. We cannot force ourselves to remember. Forgetting is a vital phenomenon for memory. One must know how to forget to progress. One cannot enjoy the past, nor be obsessed by bad memories.

To accept not to remember these events would be like not respecting the victims of these terrible events, it would be insulting to their memory

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