Some anniversaries are irresistible, others merely cannot be allowed to pass. The astonishing thing about this September 11 is that it is falling into the second category. It is hard to detect much enthusiasm for the subject in the news magazines and the wire commentaries so far. It's as though there is nothing more to say about the day we thought the world had changed, or that we still cannot make much sense of it.
How do you wage a war on something as nebulous as terror? How do you win it? And is it the enemy anyway?
Terror has never seemed to me an adequate description of what happened a year ago on Thursday, New Zealand time.
Certainly I felt terror for a few hours that morning, woken by a telephone call and watching as the World Trade Centre burned and fell on television. But by dawn, when no more planes were in the sky and it was over, it wasn't terror I felt.
I would have boarded an aircraft that morning, and have done so several times since. Next weekend I'm booked to fly halfway around the world and the prospect doesn't fill me with any more trepidation than it ever did. The only lasting impact of September 11 is that I must remember not to put the nail clippers in the cabin bag.
On the anniversary, George W. Bush will no doubt say our freedom from fear is the measure of terrorism's defeat, but I'm not sure terror was ever really the aim.
People are terrorised less by the horror of an act than its repetition. It takes a sustained threat to change human behaviour and that is difficult against the defences of a developed country.
The only genuine terrorism in a society such as ours is the risk that leaves women afraid to walk alone in a secluded park or on suburban streets after dark. That is a loss of liberty that truly warrants a war on terror.
The people who planned September 11 must have known that no sustained change of behaviour or policy was likely to result from a single raid on the United States, no matter how frightful.
And they must have known that when the civil and military defences of the US were thus awakened they would not get a chance to wreak a repeat performance of a comparable scale.
So if their purpose wasn't to terrorise, why did they go to the trouble of converting four commercial airliners into ready-made suicide bombs? It was an idea so obvious in retrospect, and so unthinkable until September 11, that we still haven't coined a suitable term for it.
Hijackings, as we used to know them, usually gave their victims a chance. Passengers were hostage to paramilitary negotiations, not mere infidels destined to perish at the gates of paradise.
We were not even sure afterwards whether this was primarily a religious, political, cultural or nationalist act. No organisation claimed responsibility for it then or since.
It was left to America's Western critics to ascribe possible motives. They relished their self-appointed task. The Palestinian cause was the obvious candidate but an unprecedented strike at New York and Washington seemed to require something more grand.
So the bombing became a calculated blow at American and Western perfidy in general, at prosperity and poverty, cultural imperialism, transnational commerce, free trade, consumerism, and all the insidious forces of globalisation.
The United States, they said, was learning how much it is hated.
Osama bin Laden and associates must have enjoyed reading that. His own material rails mainly at American soldiers standing on sacred Arabian soil, American support for Israel and to sinful Western influence in the Middle East.
Like most political operators Mr bin Laden and his murderous crew talk and act for home consumption. They probably didn't bomb New York and Washington in the expectation of terrorising the West or wreaking some conscience-stricken change in its attitudes and policies.
Their interest is in the Islamic world. Their real enemies are the mildly pro-Western, repressive, corrupt and relatively secular regimes that rule most Arab countries. Their ideal was the Taleban.
They aim to kill and destroy American citizens and symbols, hoping to provoke a reaction that will polarise Arab politics and radicalise populations against any leader who does not rally behind his Muslim brothers.
At a deeper level, they aim to raise a perverted sense of pride among dispirited young Arabs who have been taught to blame Western colonialism for the poor leadership, wretched poverty and national incompetence that characterise a once mighty culture.
On both those counts the masterminds of September 11 probably consider their mission a resounding success.
They may be surprised that the Taleban was routed, since they calculated that the US was weak-willed and Allah would protect the virtuous. But somebody has been protecting Osama and al Qaeda.
At the decisive battles of Tora Bora and Shahikot in December and February, American commanders trusted Afghan militias to deliver the coup de grace and each time the militias let the quarry escape, eventually into Pakistan.
If George W. Bush was still waging a war on terror he would have his forces combing Pakistan right now.
Instead he is looking for a less elusive target, the godless Saddam Hussein. Somewhere, bin Laden is smiling.
Story archives:
Links: War against terrorism
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
<i>John Roughan:</i> Right about now Osama bin Laden will be smiling
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