September 11th changed the meaning of evil in the world. Innocent people, killed by other innocents used as weapons, moulded western imagination through a powerful media icon, destined to mark more than a decade and to become part of history, with its images of planes flying into the Twin Towers, people jumping from those buildings, the falling towers and the empty space on the New York skyline watched incessantly over and over again. At that very moment many people all over the world, including many Muslims with the exception of a minority blinded by ideological rage, took possession of that horror and that void as being their own. This happened to the extent that it became easy to create an alliance against Islamic terrorism that also included many Muslim countries, at least until the invasion of Afghanistan.

Then, that capital of solidarity and human pietas was squandered, deleted by arrogance, by extremist tones, by propaganda, by a lack of pity for innocents at other latitudes. And so, for a few years extremists on both sides had a free rein and they seemed to be winning. In this al Qaeda’s strategy was successful and the conflict of civilizations suddenly seemed prominent.

For a few years, for far too long, these ideas became radicalized, language was militarized, reasoning impoverished, reduced to simplistic and misleading pairs, such as black/white, good/bad, with God pitted against God (with God of course privatized by all parties involved). In this sense al Qaeda’s school of thought won the day and was reflected in the arrogant Bushism of the Iraqi adventure (based on lies and producing more terrorism than it defeated, not to mention the thousands of innocent victims, including the western soldiers sent to die there pointlessly), until recently all dominant and winning paradigms.

It was a paradigm that established itself in the Islamic world thanks to its own successes, by too many perceived, and misunderstood, as a battle between the good Islamic Robin Hood against the evil western Sheriff of Nottingham (and like him stupid and cruel as is generally believed), and that in the West had been legitimized in different ways. In the United States it was legitimized by the ‘theocon’ right’s protestant extremism, and is Europe, in Italy for example, by a sort of global “Fallacism”, politically apathetic and pervasive with, however, less catastrophic results, mainly reduced to widespread but only verbal violence (although this did result in an overall poisoning of society but did not encourage devastating adventures such as the Iraqi one, for which support was provided with only limited direct intervention).

Nowadays things have changed. On one hand there are al Qaeda’s defeats, its progressive isolation and finally the killing of its charismatic leader, Bin Laden. Today al Qaeda exists mainly by inertia, thanks to a desperate will to survive, and no longer on its successes and its ability to play a cat and mouse game with the powerful West, leading the game as it seemed able to do for a while. On the other hand there has been the election of Obama, with policies that included extending a hand to Islam (keeping the fist firmly clenched only with violent radicalism, which is what should have happened from the very beginning). For all involved there has been the exhaustion caused by a very expensive period from the viewpoint of culture, the economy and human blood, which is the same colour everywhere, which slowly progressed amid bombastic statements but no real achievements on either side.

The proof that this season is at its decline, in spite of the possible tragic relapses there may be in the future, comes from two very different recent events. The first was the Arab Spring, which has shown how the aspiration for a different and better life and the abandoning of immobility by large masses of Muslims, is no longer polarized by the false alternative between Islamic radicalism on one hand and on the other the dictatorial authoritarianism of Middle Eastern satraps, justified by opposition to radical Islam (with the West’s blind support to the bitter end) and relying instead on a democratic choice based neither on religion or on violence. The second event was the Oslo massacre, which showed the West what results that can arise from obsessive ghosts, imbued with the racial superiority and cultural arrogance it has allowed to grow in its midst in recent years. After Oslo and Utoya, many opened their eyes and even those pretending not to see now know.

Terrorism is of course not yet defeated and fanaticism still seems able to seduce the minds of many people. But we have learned the lesson and on both sides things are changing. For this reason we can remember this anniversary, mourn the victims with greater empathy, and less of the ideological fervour of the past on other anniversaries. This is a sign that, as grown-ups, we have completed our mourning, and this is not unimportant. Nor was it a given. For some years we had indeed lost hope.

Translated by Francesca Simmons