U.S. Pays Attention to `Generation 9.11`

A newly-coined word, `generation 9.11` appeared in the United States. How long will the effect of 9.11 terror bear its imprint?

▽ Generation 9.11

In the cover story of the recent issue `Newsweek`, the young generation such as college students who experienced the unprecedented terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sep. 11 was defined as `generation 9.11`. And it pointed out that the future responses of this generation to the terrorist attacks would intrigue much attention.

Unlike the older generation, this generation has experienced little social distress while enjoying the peaceful prosperity until the terrorists attacked their homeland. Only thing they cared about were the future career after graduation, movie, music, etc..

However, the terrorism changed everything. Those students who once dreamed of earning huge bonuses on `Wall Street` are now thinking about working for the government, maybe joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The ROTC, which in the past was received with rocks and bottles, is receiving the warm applause.

The `Generation 9.11` is also different from the older generation having received only the western-oriented education, in the sense that they have grow up learning the histories of China, Africa and Islam world. Thus, they have better apprehension about other cultures.

The Newsweek evaluated, ``It`s too soon to tell whether 2001 will be more like 1941, when campuses and the country were united, or 1966, the beginning of a historic rift.``

▽ Terrorism Also Shocked Children

The Sesame Workshop, creators of television`s `Sesame Street` asked the children to draw what they were afraid of in the weeks after the terrorist attacks, and the results were that youngsters ages 6 to 11 drew pictures of collapsed buildings and fallen planes, soldiers in camouflage and family graveyards, nuclear explosions and total darkness, reported the Washingtonpost on Nov. 2nd.

It is in a total difference from the fact that, in an identical study, youngsters drew spiders, snakes and other ordinary monsters of childhood last May.

While children in the first study said they were afraid of losing playgrounds to pollution last May, they said that they were scared of losing parents to Osama bin Laden in September.

The experts worried that just like those old enough to remember diving under school desks as kids during the air-raid drills of the 1950s have spent their entire lives with the fears on the former Soviet Union, the 9.11 terrorism would also shape the traumatizing mental template on children.

eligius@donga.com