Speeches Former Ambassadors
Ambassador’s Marquardt’s Speech
September 11, 2006
U.S. EMBASSY, YAOUNDE
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Cameroonian Friends and Fellow Americans
Thank you all for joining us today for this solemn celebration of what the President has proclaimed to be “Patriot Day.”
I especially welcome Ambassador Mendouga from Washington and Ambassador Belinga from New York, who have special perspectives on the events of September 11, 2001.
We Americans are not experienced in celebrating this day. Indeed, unlike solemn remembrances like Veterans Day and Memorial Day, this is not a holiday, and there is no established tradition for commemorating it.
And perhaps our memories of that day and our emotions about it remain so fresh and so unsettled that we all face them without a full understanding of their meaning.
The only remotely similar day I can think of is December 7. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, December 7 never passed without us remembering the sneak attack on U.S. forces in Pearl Harbor—the original “day of infamy” in the immortal words of President Roosevelt.
While the parallels are not exact, September 11 has become another “day of infamy” for successor generations. It was a day when we Americans lost our innocence, our sense of safety and vulnerability on the American homeland, and suddenly realized that our way of life was under attack from fanatics whom we neither knew nor understood.
We were left with questions: Why this? Why us? Why now? What next? Few of us will ever forget precisely where we were as we learned what had happened to our country.
This of course was not just an attack on America. And it was far from the first. Africans suffered more than Americans when Al Qaeda destroyed our embassies in East Africa on August 8, 1998. Since 9/11, attacks in Morocco, Indonesia, Spain, London, Turkey, and across the globe have made clear that freedom everywhere is the enemy of these extremists.
So today we stand here united in remembering this tragic day, as a day of uncommon loss and also uncommon courage on the parts of so many. Citizens of 90 nations died with Americans in Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania, and we remember them as well.
In a moment, after I read the president’s Patriot Day Proclamation, I will plant a mango tree. We hope that this symbolic tree will grow up to provide fruit and shade, and beauty into the future. And also serve as a focal point here in Yaounde our memories of September 11.
After I plant it, I will ask for a moment of silence for the victims of September 11 and for their families and loved ones that will conclude this event.
But I hope this tree will also give us hope. I think again of December 7 and I recall the animosities between peoples that once characterized that day. Today, Americans and Japanese are closest in friends among nations, sharing all values and working together for peace and prosperity everywhere.
From the evaluation I draw hope that the fears and resentments and hatred that led to September 11 will also one day be healed.