"Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name;..." Genesis 11:4

Proclaimed by unprecedented and 'unprovoked' sacrifice of 'American' lives from all over the world, 911 is an emergency because this falling Tower of Babel is the symbolic target of the diffused violence that inhabits the deafening cacophony of the (inner) conflict(s) of civilization(s).

Unable to outgrow the horizons of their respective histories and unwilling to surrender their 'traditional' self-perceptions, (still-born) 'nations' look to American leadership to solve their neighborhood and even domestic problems. Crucible-womb of the emerging global civilization and tempted by imperial ambitions, the hegemonic superpower remains a political paradox increasingly at odds with those 'left behind'. By self-consciously focusing on cultural identity as an ongoing precipitate of religious commitment, ethnic inheritance, national aspiration, practical necessities and individual choices, this collective mirror hopes to be a sensitive catalyst that would both quicken and mitigate the labor-pains of a new more equitable world-order.

This forum is dedicated to deciphering the significance of this 'mother of all events' and using it as a lightning rod to juxtapose, translate, contextualize, interrogate, sweeten and hopefully reconcile the otherwise discordant tongues of those who still delude themselves that they are living outside the Tower. By exposing our latent (self-)contradictions with such explosive symbolic force, the blinding 'Wrath of God' may just as well serve as a beacon to illuminate the difficult path of reconstruction ahead.