Sept. 11 is doubly a "day of infamy" in my life. On Sept. 11, 1973, I watched in horror as unarmed civilians died around me in the streets of Santiago, Chile, innocent victims of General Augusto Pinochet's violent military coup against the elected government of President Salvador Allende.
Later that day I looked in disbelief as Chilean Air Force jets bombed and set afire La Moneda, their country's White House. It burned with an intense flame that I recalled this Sept. 11 as I again watched in horror as planes and fire destroyed the buildings symbolic of my city, and the lives of thousands of innocent people in the process.
But the parallel between these days of infamy extends much further. I realized this when I saw the photographs of the missing that their relatives posted around New York in a desperate appeal for information and in hope of learning that somehow they are still alive. I felt it again in the anguished cry of a mother close to me: "I can't find my son! Where is my son?"
In Chile, during the days and weeks and months that followed Pinochet's coup of Sept. 11, tens of thousands of men and women "disappeared" into his regime's torture chambers, and thousands - perhaps as many as in the World Trade Center tragedy - have never been seen since. In Chile, too, I have witnessed the agony of mothers whose sons are "missing," and seen signs with the photos of their "disappeared" loved ones and the accusing words: "Donde estan?" - Where are they? But the parallels between these two infamous Sept. 11s end there, and the equally significant differences begin. The victims of Chile's Sept. 11 tragedy were victims of state terror - a terrorism in which the US government was complicit, as its own declassified documents have revealed a complicity rooted in our Cold War national security concerns. The victims of this Sept. 11s tragedy appear to have been victims of a terror perpetrated by individuals who believed that they were avenging past actions by the US government.
Unfortunately, their horrific acts have a resonance far beyond the borders of Afghanistan or the boundaries of Islam. Friends and colleagues in Latin America express horror, sympathy, and solidarity in e-mails I have received since Latin America. But many of them also express resentment and are mystified by our inability to comprehend the hatred of the US as the result of past actions that our government have generated in many regions of the world - including Latin America.
Seeing ourselves as others see us has never been our strongpoint. We are too blinded by our sense of mission. President Bush's speech designed to rally the nation with its oversimplified division of the world into good and evil, us and them - will not help us see the world more clearly.
Once past the mourning and rallying around the flag, our nation needs a time of introspection. We should reflect on why there is hatred of the US and what we can do to lessen it. We need to ponder the lessons of a history that includes more than one "day of infamy."
What lessons can be learned from this terrible conjuncture of past and present? In our rush to revenge, we must take care not to multiply the number of innocent victims - at home as well as abroad. We must also take care not to multiply our enemies and fan the flames of the all too human hatred that inspired this inhuman atrocity. We must not repeat our past errors of embracing tyrants and accepting violations of human rights in the name of national security.
While pursuing urgent immediate goals, we must not lose sight of the long-term consequences of our actions. If we cannot learn from the past, we will be storing up hostages to future misfortune. If we can learn these lessons, those who died on these days of infamy will not have died in vain.
Peter Winn is professor of history and director of Latin American Studies at Tufts.
