9/11/2001 - 5 years...

Everybody born in the 40's or 50's may remember exactly what they were doing on 22nd November 1963 when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas. It was a profound commotion all around the world. And after this event, this world became less safe and more complex to understand. Those who cherish the memory of JFK consider that it was because of his death that the US intervened massively in Vietnam, that the country lost its innocence and then happened the Watergate, and the diverse crises of the 70's...

Everybody of our generation may also remember exactly what they were doing when they learnt about 9/11/2001 attacks. Personally, I was at my office in Rio de Janeiro, preparing to go for a business travel at Sao Paulo. I paid attention to one weird news on the net : "Plane crashed in the WTC"... Nothing else about the size of the aircraft, the casualties... well it should be a helicopter or something else, I thought... Poor pilot! Then, I called my sister as I was walking to the domestic airport... Hello, happy birthday! I said.. (She was born a 11th september..)... Oh! It is a day like other else... she said... And at that moment it wasn't anymore...

In the airport, I remembered I took the same plane as Pedrinho... nobody knows Pedrinho and it's normal. He is a Soccer player and he was playing at Palmeiras (Sao Paulo)... You surely dont care, but I remembered this stupid detail... and I will always think "I took the same plane as Pedrinho the 09/11/2001...Everything was quiet in Rio... cloudness day as it was in NYC... Beautiful as no other place in the world can be...

Just the opposite of what I found in Sao Paulo. I took a cab and the driver was panicked : "They bombed New York, nothing left"... That's how I learnt what I supposed to be a mere helicopter was actually 2 Boeings that went in the WTC. Impossible! I thought... It should be caused by a tragic error from the Air Traffic Management of one airport of NY. They are giving wrong instructions of landing to the planes... congratulations guys, YOU LOST YOUR JOB!!! That's why both had the same fatal trajectory. The reported crash of an additional plane in the Pentagon convinced me that this theory was wrong and as I arrived at my business lunch (Restaurant Red, Avenida Paulista - this restaurant doesn't exist anymore), I was at least aware that a infame tragedy was happening in the US.

At the lunch, we did not talk about business, partnership, synergies... we kept watching TV. We understood that we were in a new world, less safe for those who thought it was. It was 5 years ago... And today Bin Laden is still free, George Bush, Tony Blair are still on duty. Even Jacques Chirac remains at his office. After NY, terrorists hit Madrid, London, Mumbai, but also Turkey, Morrocco and everyday Iraq...

Tomorrow will be a day of mourning in the US... Half a decade passed. I am sure that in decades, everybody who assisted the attacks on TV, in NY, in Washington, anywhere, everybody will remember what they did when they know about.