Sept 11th 2001 remembered

September 11 is one of those dates where everyone remembers where they were. I remember where I was when the twin towers were hit. At the time I was working for a US company as a global programme director and I was on a conference call involving New Jersey and Boston based clients. Suddenly, one of the Boston staff declared that, 'Some weird news footage is being transmitted, we need to close this call and comeback to you'. In the UK it was approximately 2pm and we quickly terminated the call and headed to a general office floor where everyone was fixed to their screens attempting to download images or video of the first plane hitting the first tower. The result was that most Personal compcomputers were hanging – Internet traffic must have been really peeking. NB At the time the company I was working for was a leading Internet hosting premises organisation – with giant network pipes. One can only assume that the world was in shock desperate to get information on what was happening.

The devastation and shockwaves shook the Earth horrifically. Since that fateful day, a whole stack of films, documentaries and political statements have been released. We relive the day in our minds. It is an event that we cannot forget. When you see the twin towers fall on recorded footage it still sends shivers down our spines.

For Sikhs the ripple effects resulted in mistaken identity. Unfortunately, many Sikhs were abused in the streets and also killed. Should people not be uniting to fight the terrorists.I agree with the need to route out cowards. We also need to ensure that any strategy does not victimise innocent communities.

We need to fight to preserve a safe, united and fair world. It is our responsibility - it is up to us to place it on the agenda of the politicans and to stop building and selling arms between nations.

We need to hope for good news on the horizon – it is called fighting for unity, mutual respect and the need for us to achieve harmony.

Harmony against poverty and achieving fair trading laws can ensure that we are all equal. Once we also achieve this attitude of unity it can certainly help to route out the agitators and those that hide in the shadows.

Five years on the mental and physical scars are still present. We must not forget the victims and the fact that an attack on the world trade centre was an attack against humanity, against people of many nations. I recently saw a picture of children of mothers who survived or survivors of their lost husbands. It is hard to imagine that these children will not see their fathers, feel their love and support. The hurt continues and all we can hope for is an end to violence and a realisation by the perpetrators violence is fruitless as they achieving nothing. For this to happen we need two major things: Firstly, effective leaders with a vision to unite and secondly lesser apathy from us!