culture foundations.

JOURNAL FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH VOLUME 8 NUMBER 1 (JANUARY 2004)

Gazing at Ground Zero: Tourism, Voyeurism and Spectacle

Debbie Lisle Taylor and Francis LtdRCUV8101.sgmJournal for Cultural Research1479-7585Original Article2004Taylor & Francis Ltd81000000January 2004

This essay uses the temporary viewing platform at the site of the former World Trade Center to explore our fascination with violence, conflict and disaster. It illustrates how discourses of voyeurism and authenticity promote a desire for sites of horror, and examines how that desire both disrupts and reinforces our prevailing interpretations of global politics. The viewing platform at Ground Zero was initially constructed to manage the thousands of people who traveled to New York in response to the shocking media images of 11 September. However, their desire to escape mediation and touch “the real” had the opposite effect—it transformed Ground Zero into a tourist attraction. Using Ground Zero as a start- ing point, this essay theorizes discourses of voyeurism and authenticity through the work of Baudrillard, Debord and Bauman in an effort to position the tourist as a significant political subject.

Introduction

Nearly four months after the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC), a public viewing platform was opened at the edge of Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. The privately funded platform was designed by four prominent New York architects—David Rockwell, Kevin Kennon, Liz Diller and Rick Scofidio— and rushed through the usual red tape of urban planning (CNN 2001). It was a simple plywood construction with a long inclining ramp, and a five meter high platform that held up to 300 people at a time. At the opening ceremony on 30 December 2001, Mayor Guiliani explained,

We decided to put up these platforms because there’s been so much of an inter- est in seeing this site … People from all over the world want to come here, for I think the most appropriate of reasons … Because they realize that something very horrendous and very magnificent happened here. It’s going to be part of our history forever. (CNN 2001; AFP 2001)

Responding to its immediate popularity, the New York Office of Emergency Management—the body in charge of the viewing platform—implemented a system

ISSN 1479–7585 print/1740–1666 online/04/010003–20 © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1479758042000797015

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of ticket allocation. Free tickets were distributed between 11am and 6pm from South Street Seaport, seven blocks from the actual site. Because the tickets were distributed chronologically in order to allow visitors half-hour intervals on the platform, one could not reserve a special time to see Ground Zero. By July 2002, every ticket was taken up every day, and there were plans to build three more viewing platforms around the site. However, as the reconstruction of Ground Zero got under way and the events of 11 September receded into the background of current affairs, crowds began to dissipate and the plywood viewing platform was dismantled at the end of the summer. While no official viewing platform took its place, the whole southern perimeter of Ground Zero became a pedestrian walk- way along Church and Liberty Streets where visitors could congregate. Large marble plaques bearing the names of those who were killed on 11 September were mounted on the surrounding fence, and visitors continued to leave messages of condolence and support on the plywood scaffolding along Liberty Street.

This essay uses the temporary viewing platform at Ground Zero to open up a discussion about global politics, mediation, tourism and voyeurism. It argues that the viewing platform helps us visualize more than just the remains of the WTC— it forces us to confront difficult questions about how we locate, interpret and consume sites of disaster. For those interested in the current reconfiguration of global authority, the viewing platform is significant in that both American and international visitors reproduced powerful feelings of belonging, community and solidarity when gazing upon the rubble of the WTC. Some visitors were outward looking—fueled by powerful feelings of revenge, they left messages in support of the American led “War on Terror”. Some visitors were inward looking—pausing to think about what could have caused such a catastrophe, they asked, “Why do they hate America so much?” Regardless of their reasons for being there, all of the visitors on the viewing platform shared the common experience of seeing the Twin Towers collapse on television. Waiting in line for tickets to the platform, many people revealed where they were on 11 September: “My brother phoned me at work and told me to turn on the TV”, or “I got out of the shower just in time to see the second plane fly into the tower”. For many, it was these powerful and unforgettable images that prompted them to make the journey to Ground Zero in person. And this is where an interesting paradox emerges. Despite a worldwide downturn in tourism after 11 September, once the viewing platform was opened at Ground Zero visitors started coming to New York in record numbers. Between its opening and the end of June 2002, the viewing platform attracted more than a million out-of-town visitors and reached three-and-a-half million by the end of the year. Ironically, those figures exceeded the 1.8 million visitors that the WTC used to get on its observation deck each year (Blair 2002b). During 2002, the viewing platform competed with—and in some cases far surpassed—other New York tourist attractions like the Empire State Building.

This essay examines the popularity of the viewing platform in order to illus- trate how prevailing understandings of global politics are both reinforced and disrupted by our desire to consume sites of atrocity. I am particularly interested in how this desire is facilitated by two interlocking mechanisms: media images of

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atrocity and tourist opportunities to visit these sites. The media images of 11 September emerged instantaneously and created confusion as to the reality of this event: was it a movie, or was it really happening? This confusion, in part, is what inspired tourists—here was an opportunity to confirm the “reality” of the events of 11 September. To be sure, it is easy to argue that Ground Zero tourists were unthinking voyeurs keen to participate in an unfolding historical drama. But I want to resist that reading: not only does it miss the discursive complexity of a site like Ground Zero, it also suggests that the apparatus of tourism closes down the possibility for reflection and simply encourages passive subjects to reproduce prevailing norms, values and attitudes. I want to argue that the opportunities for tourism at Ground Zero are politically interesting because they animate powerful discourses of voyeurism and authenticity within which multiple and contradictory subject positions circulate. Visitors to Ground Zero didn’t just react with jingo- istic attitudes about national security; they also reacted through silence, contemplation and reflection upon their own voyeuristic behavior. Not only do these reflexive moments at Ground Zero disrupt the prevailing interpretations of 11 September, they also suggest that there was more to the viewing platform than an opportunity for unreconstructed voyeurism.

One of the most common sentiments in the wake of 11 September was that the world had changed for ever. It seems strange then, that International Relations scholars—the very people who chart the organization of global power—said very little in response. As James Der Derian explains,

there is very little about 9–11 that is safe to say … it is intellectually difficult and even politically dangerous to assess the meaning of a conflict that phase-shifts with every news cycle … Under such conditions, it is no wonder that many social scientists might choose to remain silent. (2002, p. 1)

Like Der Derian, I want to argue that this silence emerged, in part, from a dissat- isfaction with the prevailing interpretive frameworks of International Relations. Either 11 September became part of a national discourse that united American citizens through common feelings of loss, and projected that unity outward in order to secure American hegemony in world affairs; or 11 September became part of an international discourse that confirmed the hegemony of liberal democ- racy—it was not just America that was under threat, it was every other “civi- lized” state in the world. That either/or dichotomy is insufficient because it fails to account for the transnational character of global politics. This paper situates the events of 11 September generally, and the viewing platform at Ground Zero specifically, within critical efforts to re-imagine global politics through more complex, contingent and deterritorialized categories. The problem with tradi- tional accounts of International Relations is that they position the events of 11 September as a decisive moment in the new civilizational battle between “the West” and “the Rest”. What these accounts fail to recognize is that the category of civilization reproduces the same practices of violence and exclusion as the sovereign state. In other words, they may expand our geopolitical boundaries,

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but they fail to problematize how those boundaries continue to enact political authority through hierarchies, exclusions and increasingly violent interventions.

By examining the viewing platform through a more interdisciplinary, cultural and discursive framework, it is possible to critically intervene in traditional accounts of International Relations that use the events of 11 September to promote civilizational divisions between “the West” and “the Rest”. Not only do civilizational divisions cover over the transnational character of global politics, they also figure subjects primarily as citizens: one is either a member of a civili- zation or an alien. This effaces the role of the tourist in global politics and ignores the tourist’s capacity to travel within and through national, civilizational and cultural boundaries. To be sure, the tourist must be figured through existing power relations—these are predominantly wealthy Western travelers who often reinforce the superiority of their own cultures when confronted with difference. In other words, tourism itself reinforces the idea of “the West vs. the Rest”. But the very fact that tourists are mobile means that their border crossings are potentially disruptive. To put it another way, tourists are inherently trans- national subjects. Their circuits are no longer handcuffed to a beaten track—they now occupy the same space as diplomats, criminals, terrorists, explorers, soldiers and spies. My point is that by re-imagining 11 September through a more transnational framework, it is possible to both critique the civilizational divisions of global politics and foreground the tourist as a significant political subject.

Restoring Identity

The viewing platform at Ground Zero illustrates how national and civilizational identities are articulated at times of crisis. Once it was open to the public, the viewing platform at Ground Zero became a significant cultural site in the repro- duction, dissemination and confirmation of a renewed American identity. In other words, this was the primary location for restoring a strong “America” after the shock of 11 September. To consolidate the viewing platform’s importance to the nation, Mayor Guiliani urged people,

… to come here and say a little prayer and reflect on the whole history of America … It has to become a place in which when anybody comes here immediately they’re going to feel the great power and strength and emotion of what it means to be an American. (Dobnik 2001; Hodge 2001)

People responded immediately to Guiliani’s call and began “flocking from all over the country and the world to show their support and respect, not only to New York, but to the nation” (Grotecloss 2002). For example, visitor David Crosby from New Orleans said, “It’s the most important nation-shaping event in my lifetime” (CNN 2002). Part of renewing a strong national identity meant attaching 11 September to an already established historical narrative. In Mayor- Elect Bloomberg’s speech at the opening ceremony of the viewing platform, he argued: “Standing here conveys a lot of America—a lot of America’s past, a lot of America’s present and also a lot of America’s future” (CNN 2001). Many

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American visitors reinforced that narrative by comparing their experiences of 11 September with previous events in national history. Visiting New York from Phil- adelphia, Lori Jordan explained, “Like for Pearl Harbour: my parents had to see it. It was hard, but now I’m doing the same thing here in Ground Zero.” Kenneth Feinstein from Florida connected Ground Zero to a different historical moment: “It reminds me of JFK’s funeral … I lined up to see his body at the Rotunda. There was the same kind of atmosphere” (AFP 2001). But it was not only national iden- tities that were reinforced at Ground Zero—record numbers of Canadians, Mexi- cans and Japanese made trips to New York when the viewing platform opened. However, it was British visitors who signified the construction of a civilizational identity most clearly. American tourism officials reasoned that people who “lived with IRA threats for decades” would not be deterred by the urban wreckage of lower Manhattan (Hyde 2001, p. 20). John Hillhouse, visiting the viewing plat- form from England explained: “We have had terrorism for years. To tell you the truth, we are not going to let things like that bother us. We are brothers in arms, and America deserves support from our country” (Blair 2002a).

As American visitors located Ground Zero within a recognizable national narra- tive and foreign visitors lent their support, familiar characters began to emerge. Days after 11 September, America produced a confirmed enemy in Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network. Indeed, it seemed that the enemy-making func- tion of sovereignty was working overtime in this case. Many critical scholars in International Relations have explained how national identity is secured through the production of difference, and this case was no different: America projected its fears, constructed a threat and found a legitimate other (Campbell 1998; Connolly 1991; Der Derian & Shapiro 1989). What made this particular enemy so evil was that it had infiltrated and destroyed part of America itself. It is easy to see how combined feelings of injustice and victimization fueled some of the more jingoistic sentiments that emerged from America after 11 September. But what is not easy to see—what is in fact covered over by the production of difference— is the transnational character of these events. I’ve already alluded to the inter- national visitors on the viewing platform, but that quality also extends to the victims and perpetrators. We often forget that the WTC complex employed people from all over the world—not only business people in multinational corpo- rations, but also recent immigrants working in low-skilled service sector jobs (e.g. waiters, janitors, dish-washers, mailroom workers). Along with the 67 Brit- ish citizens killed at Ground Zero, there were also 17 Columbians, 16 Jamaicans, 15 Filipinos and 15 Mexicans.1 Furthermore, these transnational characteristics can also be applied to the Al Qaeda network. Not only does this organization draw support from the entire Islamic world, it also has members from Britain and America. In other words, Al Qaeda has penetrated both nation-states and civili- zations. And herein lies the problem: it is impossible to secure national identity

1. Although there are debates over the exact number of September 11 victims at the WTC, a conservative estimate of their nationality can be found online at: www.september11victims.com/september11victims/COUNTRY_CITIZENSHIP.htm

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when the enemy cannot be externalized. Who does America construct itself against if the other lives outside and within its borders? People’s frustration at the inability to externalize the enemy and contain it in foreign space resulted in a number of racist attacks being perpetrated on innocent members of the Arab community living in America, Britain, Canada and elsewhere (Cainkar 2002). “Patriotic” American citizens were soon comparing their Arab neighbors against the 22 “Most Wanted Terrorists” circulating on the FBI’s website and on the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” (Der Derian 2002, p. 12).

Mediated Reverence

Amidst the political upheavals that followed 11 September, one thing became abundantly clear: the manner in which the information about the attacks was delivered to us clearly indicated that we are living in an era of total media satu- ration. As Peter Conrad argues, “Thanks to mobile phones and television news channels, everyone on 11 September knew within minutes that our world had convulsively changed” (2001, p. 1). As soon as the first plane hit the WTC complex, horrific images were instantaneously and continuously beamed through satellites to editors and news anchors who struggled to make sense of it live before a mesmerized global audience. Many have argued that the terrorists timed the WTC explosions to gain maximum media coverage—they knew that the TV cameras would be pointing at the smoking first tower as the second plane hit (Virilio 2002). All this is to say that the spectacular media event of 11 September collapsed the modern distinction between reality and representation in front of a mass global audience. As Der Derian argues, the initial confusion on 11 Septem- ber was particularly revealing in this respect:

Into the void left by the collapse of the WTC towers and the absence of detached analysis, there rushed a host of metaphors, analogies, and metonyms, dominated by denial (“It’s a movie”), history (“It’s Pearl Harbour”), and non-specific horror (“It’s the end of the world as we have known it”) … Indeed, after the looped foot- age of the collapse of the towers began to take on the feeling of déjà vu, I seri- ously wondered if the reality principle, as in nothing so much as The Matrix, had not taken a final blow. (2002, p. 8)

Nobody could be sure if what they saw on their screens was real or not. In fact, it was only the low quality of the video footage that convinced audiences they were not watching a prime-time disaster movie. In this context of media saturation, the viewing platform became crucial in the restoration of the reality principle. If people still didn’t believe what happened on 11 September, they could travel to Ground Zero and see for themselves. Regardless of where visitors came from or why they felt the need to gaze upon Ground Zero, they were united by the need to see the WTC remains in person. Jillian Regan, whose father survived the WTC attack, explained, “It’s not the same to see it on TV; I just want to see it” (Yancey 2002). One visitor canceled a planned shopping trip in order to visit Ground Zero: “I need closure … I was 1,100 miles away, deeply affected by 09/11. I am

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very glad there is a way to view the site; I want to see it first hand. I need to see it” (Richardson 2002). Waiting in line for her allotted time on the platform, Dorothy Dillard from Oklahoma said, “I can feel it at a distance, but I really want to feel it up close” (CNN 2002). More than anything, it was this desire for confirmation— of proving that 11 September really did happen—that drove thousands of people to make the journey to New York, line up for hours at the ticket booth, and gaze upon the remains of the WTC from the viewing platform.

Despite the “unique” status of Ground Zero as an urban site of mass death and destruction, it slotted quite easily into a normalized circuit of tourist consump- tion. With seven out of ten visitors to New York lining up to see Ground Zero, there was no doubt that it became another New York attraction to be listed in the guide- books, another site to tick off on the “been there, done that” tourist circuit (Rich- ardson 2002; Blair 2002b; Samways 2002). Almost immediately, questions were raised over the appropriateness of having a viewing platform at all, especially one constructed so soon after the event. Many argued that turning Ground Zero into a tourist attraction was an inadequate and inappropriate response to the tragedy. The problem with the viewing platform was that it encouraged behavior that seemed incongruous in a sacred site like Ground Zero. As one rescue and recovery worker argued, “It’s appalling. All these people coming to look, to stare. I don’t like it … The tourists come and they mill around and then they say, you know, ‘let’s get lunch’, or whatever, and sometimes I can’t stand it” (Overington 2002). New York City residents and the families of victims articulated the most vocal opposition to the construction of a viewing platform, arguing that it encouraged a “ghoulish form of tourism”. Ellen Shea, who lost her husband on 11 September, expressed disapproval at the way Ground Zero was being commodified: “It is so sad for me that people do not call it for what it is. A ghoulish attraction, a money- maker” (Blair 2002b). As one local resident explained, “We are treated like a freak show … We had people come to our apartment and ask us to view the damage in our apartment … It is disgusting. It is not a tourist attraction—this is a tragedy and a lot of people don’t treat it that way” (BBC 2002).

In response to this criticism, the New York Office of Emergency Management stated emphatically that the viewing platform was not a tourist attraction—it was simply a practical solution to the spontaneous arrival of so many people who wanted access to Ground Zero. Cristyne Nicholas, a member of the foundation that set up the viewing platform, explains:

We are not marketing Ground Zero. What we are doing is accepting the fact that it is a major interest point for visitors and New Yorkers and that when you have this many people coming, you are going to have to be mindful of the safety and security of Lower Manhattan. (Blair 2002b)

But in their efforts to manage security and crowd control, officials failed to take account of the spontaneous tourist infrastructure that mushroomed around the viewing platform. For example, retired policeman Gary Gorman provided 90 minute walking tours around the Ground Zero perimeter for $15: “It is something that people have the right to see … [the tourists] are not gawking, and they are

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here to pay their respects” (Blair 2002b). NYC Vacation Packages of Pennsylvania offered a three-night city package that included a similar walking tour of the WTC area (Hodge 2001). Likewise, a Baltimore company began its Patriot Tour in Febru- ary that included transport, food, a walking tour of the WTC area and access to the Ground Zero viewing platform (Greenlee 2002). But the relentless commod- ification of Ground Zero didn’t stop with organized tours. Amidst the ticket line- up for the viewing platform, there were people selling September 11 souvenirs— some falsely claiming that proceeds would benefit the recovery operation. Lining the seven blocks from the ticket booth to the viewing platform were a variety of hawkers selling framed pictures of the twin towers on fire, bits of soil from the recovery site, and booklets recounting the horror of 11 September in full color. On Fulton Street, consumers purchased T-shirts that said “America Under Attack” and “I Can’t Believe I Got Out”, as well as hats and handkerchiefs that read “Evil Will Be Punished” and “America: the spirit lives on” (Freeze 2001; Vulliamy & Helmore 2001; Loper 2001; McBride 2002). One man sold 4,000 rolls of toilet paper imprinted with Osama Bin Laden’s face—claiming that where others saw disaster, he saw opportunity (Blair 2002b). On good days, entrepreneur Franklin Quinlan made $500 by selling WTC memorabilia and September 11 souvenirs (Guenther 2002). With these commercial efforts surrounding the viewing platform, it is easy to see why some critics made connections to the Disney empire and started calling it “September 11 World” (Blair 2002b; Richardson 2002).

It wasn’t long before the behavior of the tourists themselves provoked criti- cism. As one commentator sarcastically remarked about the “terror tours”:

While they are eating in the Big Apple’s trendiest locales, they can think about the devastation that surrounds them at Ground Zero and how the travel company is profiting from a tragedy. They might as well add to their tour “on the right is a group of people mourning their family members who perished during the tragic events of Sept. 11.” It seems a little tacky to charge people to visit a so-called burial ground, making me wonder what kind of people think of these ideas to exploit an area of devastation. (Hodge 2001)

Much of the anger over tourism at Ground Zero rests upon the assumption that there are proper ways to pay respects, and the hordes of “disaster tourists” on the viewing platform—noble as some of their intentions were—failed to abide by that assumption. For the families of victims in particular, Ground Zero was an open grave, and therefore required behavior more appropriate to a funeral. One woman who lost her daughter on 11 September explained: “It is supposed to be a sacred place now … My child’s body is all over that place” (BBC 2002).2 The

2. The use of religious vocabulary to describe Ground Zero was very common amongst visitors. As Paulette Canuso from Philadelphia explained, “To me, it’s more a religious experience than a touris- tic one. I felt like making a pilgrimage” (AFP 2001). Jeffrey G. MacDonald argued that Ground Zero demands “the reverence of a shrine at the end of a pilgrimage” (2002). Likewise, a spokesperson for New York’s Office of Emergency Management explained, “We’re not promoting it as a tourist attrac- tion … visitors need to realise that this is a sacred location” (Yancey 2002). But as Laura Kurgan argues, it was the family members of victims who most often used religious vocabulary, “It is a burial ground. It is a cemetery, where the men and women we loved are buried. Where they rest is now hallowed ground” (2002).

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debate over appropriate behavior on the platform also divided visitors them- selves. Those who expressed reverence in appropriate ways saw themselves as “proper” mourners (good visitors), as opposed to the gawking tourists (bad visi- tors). As one “good visitor” complained:

I could hardly believe it. I was there at Ground Zero to pay my respects. But while I stood in tears reading “rest in peace” messages scrawled on the walls encasing the platform, a pack of tourists clambered around me to get the best view of the mass grave. What had gotten into these people? (Samways 2002)

The most common way visitors constructed themselves as “proper” mourners was by treating the viewing platform as a memorial. By scrawling messages of condo- lence and support on the plywood, visitors used the platform in the same way they used many makeshift memorials scattered around the WTC site (Edkins 2003). In this way, visitors could ignore the criticisms made by local residents and the families of victims—after all, they were not gawking at Ground Zero, they were simply commemorating the loss of life. But even those “good visitors” found it difficult to remain so amidst hundreds of clamoring spectators at a tourist attraction. Officers shouting out platform protocol further compromised the expected funeral-like behavior: “Be quiet, be respectful and linger only a few minutes. Let everyone have their moment.” As one visitor complained, “It is not the most contemplative atmosphere” (D’Arcy 2002).

The juxtaposition of tourism and reverence in the same space is perplexing. Although “memorials are a way of life for Americans”, Elaine Richardson explains that “this reckoning between disaster site and memorial space has never been quite so public” (2002). So public, or indeed, so quick. The “rush” of 11 Septem- ber commemoration is just the latest example of how the shortened attention span of the tourist demands an immediate memorialization of events. As Roger Rosenblatt explains, “We may be getting a bit quick building our memorials in an unspoken effort to rush through a state of mourning—an offshoot of the nonsen- sical notion of ‘closure’. Death occurs, and in no time up pop communal memo- rial gestures” (2002). I want to argue that to judge tourism as an “inappropriate” response to 11 September is problematic. It suggests that tourism is only ever a superficial engagement with the surrounding environment rather than a complex phenomenon with multiple registers. To be sure, some visitors to the viewing platform behaved in a manner more appropriate to Disneyland. But more often than not, the act of gazing upon Ground Zero produced moments of silence and acute reflection. Many visitors were shocked and ashamed by their own desire to see the wreckage, and were subsequently prompted into deeper reflection about the appropriateness of their behavior:

habitually casual tourists are asking atypically self-conscious questions about which behaviours honour a sacred burial ground and which ones might desecrate it. As the search for answers grows, so also do the debates—and the awkward moments of uncertainty … Today’s pilgrims grasp for ways to contribute without doing harm, but in their own eyes, certain attempts come up short. (MacDonald 2002)

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This reflexive mood even extended to those making a profit off Ground Zero tour- ism. Immediately after the opening of the viewing platform, one souvenir seller commented, “Maybe there should be a moratorium on vending around here, at least for a week or two. It seems that would be the righteous thing to do” (MacDonald 2002). But the most significant statement of anxiety in this regard came from Liz Diller, one of the four architects who designed and built the Ground Zero viewing platform: “If we’d known just how many people were going to use it, I’m not sure that we would have done it” (Sudjic 2002).

A Bifurcated Cartography

To politicize the viewing platform at Ground Zero is to interrogate the means by which visitors both reproduce and resist prevailing arrangements of power in their interpretations of 11 September. But this is very difficult when it is under- stood as an “extra-ordinary” event. As Der Derian explains, “9–11 quickly took on an exceptional ahistoricity … Under such forced circumstances, of being beyond experience, outside history, and between wars, 9–11 does not yield to philosoph- ical, political or social inquiry” (2002, p. 4). Suggesting that 11 September altered the face of global politics completely effaces some of the structural and long standing political tensions within the international system. Like Der Derian, I want to argue that the interpretation of 11 September as an exceptional event is profoundly depoliticizing because it ignores how prevailing arrangements of power in the international system are maintained by the continual production of difference. To be sure, there were characteristics of 11 September that made it different from previous acts of terrorism or global conflict. As Noam Chomsky explains,

The horrifying atrocities of September 11 are something quite new in world affairs, not in their scale and character, but in their target. For the United States, this is the first time since the War of 1812 that the national territory has been under attack, or even threatened … For the first time, the guns have been directed the other way. (2001, pp. 11–12)

Chomsky’s comments suggest that the production of difference is no longer hand- cuffed to the boundaries of state sovereignty. Rather, difference is now produced, disseminated and contained through the civilizational boundaries that attach nation-states to a wider bifurcated cartography in which “the West” is perpetually encountering “the Rest” (Ó’Tuathail et al. 1998, pp. 103–203).

As Ó’Tuathail et al. explain, this bifurcated cartography is articulated most clearly in Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” argument. Fukuyama famously stated that Western liberal democracies have reached the end of conflict and struggle, and have emerged into a situation of relative peace (1989, pp. 1–18). This is the end of history because there is no way to improve upon the structures of liberal democracy—all that remains is for the rest of the world to adhere to these values. In Fukuyama’s argument, those “other” states are “mired” in

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history and struggle, forever doomed to conflictual relations because they refuse liberal democracy’s guaranteed peace. It is not difficult to see how Fukuyama’s argument about the end of history serves those already powerful within the inter- national system (e.g. those that have successfully emerged from the “mire” of history) and punishes others (e.g. those still consumed by struggle). And it is not difficult to see how that argument found favor after the events of 11 September. But as Chomsky argues, Ground Zero disrupted Fukuyama’s vision because all the struggle, conflict and catastrophe usually sequestered in other parts of the world suddenly exploded at the heart of the cosmopolitan West (2001). In order to correct this disruption to the global order, the bifurcated cartography of “the West vs. the Rest” had to be restored quickly. Internally, the rescue and recovery operation began immediately as a way to cleanse the West of this terrible catas- trophe and restore New York as the apex of Western civilization. Externally, the War on Terror bombed Afghanistan back into the mire of history, struggle and catastrophe where it belongs. As the restoration of a bifurcated cartography continued, one of its more unpalatable qualities began to emerge. Embedded in “the West vs. the Rest” vision is an unequal value of life wherein Western casu- alties are more valuable than others. As Dutch architect Kas Oosterhuis explains: “The war in Afghanistan took more lives than the attack on the WTC. Why do most people feel different about the death toll in Afghanistan than about the sudden death of the WTC and 3000 users? Are some killings more just than others?” (Vollaard 2002; Sudjic 2002) This imbalance was signified most clearly in the distribution of compensation for the victims of the WTC and the victims of the War on Terror. For example, the families of British citizens who were killed in the WTC attacks were awarded millions of dollars in compensation. But the surviving family members of the Afghanis who were “accidentally” killed when American soldiers bombed a wedding celebration only received $100 per person killed.3

Although many scholars have critiqued Fukuyama’s work, there is one unexam- ined aspect of his argument that resonates with the debates surrounding the viewing platform. In the last paragraph of his famous article, Fukuyama offers a lament at the passing of history: all that is left for the enlightened West to do is become caretakers of “the museum of human history” (1989, p. 18). From the safe distance of liberal democracy, we can gaze upon the struggles of the rest of the world and feel both righteous and nostalgic. But as Baudrillard reveals, the bifurcated cartography of Fukuyama’s argument is underscored by a powerful desire to consume catastrophe:

3. Even when this amount is adjusted for purchasing power in Afghanistan, it is only equivalent to $1,000 per person killed. To provide a sense of the scale employed here, when an American Air force plane accidentally flew into a cable car in Italy, the family members were offered $275,000 per person killed (interview with Marc Herold at the University of New Hampshire, BBC News, Radio 4, Saturday 27 July 2002, 8:20am GMT). Professor Herold was the academic who caused massive controversy by suggesting that the number of non-combatant casualties in Afghanistan was 3,767— more than that of the WTC attacks (Der Derian 2002, p. 7).

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The South is a natural producer of raw materials, the latest of which is catas- trophe. The North, for its part, specialises in the reprocessing of raw materials and hence also in the reprocessing of catastrophe … Other people’s destitution becomes our adventure playground … We are the consumers of the ever delightful spectacle of poverty and catastrophe … Our whole culture lives off this catastrophic cannibalism, relayed in cynical mode by the news media. (1994, pp. 66–68)

For Baudrillard, the production of non-Western catastrophe for Western consumption is also about the “charitable condescension” of Western Humanitar- ian responses. That is to say, the media spectacle of catastrophe also reproduces the spectacle of humanitarian aid, and both of these together “secure the condi- tions of reproduction of the catastrophe market” (Baudrillard 1994, p. 67). Baud- rillard’s response to Fukuyama suggests that it is not enough to simply reflect upon the plight of the rest of the world—or even play caretaker to its status as a global museum exhibit. Rather, it is also necessary to examine how our efforts to resolve and alleviate that suffering might actually contribute to the problem. For Baudrillard, the difficulty with our responses to catastrophe—both our voyeurism and our altruism—is that they reinforce the bifurcated cartography of “the West vs. the Rest”.

To be sure, the consumption of catastrophe is not a new phenomenon. We know there were spectators at the Roman Coliseum to witness the torture and death of the Gladiators; we know that public executions and hangings in Britain used to be public events; and we know that aristocrats on the European Grand Tour used to watch the Napoleonic battles from surrounding hilltops. However, what have changed are the technologies, discourses and mechanisms through which we are able to witness and consume catastrophes. As Guy Debord so astutely revealed in The Society of the Spectacle in 1968, our mediated condi- tion introduces a whole new set of political problems. Debord argued that “the spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images” (Debord 1995, p. 12). In the soci- ety of the spectacle where we are saturated with media images, it is impossible to identify a genuine event—something set apart from our banal everyday lives. In effect, the spectacle and the everyday are identical. While Debord’s ideas are dated in some respects, they have profound implications for how we under- stand the role of tourism in a mediated society. John Urry argues that tourism requires rigid distinctions between the extraordinary and the everyday: tourists go on holiday to escape the banality of their homes and to encounter something extraordinary in an exotic destination (1990, pp. 2–3). But Urry’s formulation of tourism fails to account for Debord’s collapse of the spectacle and the every- day. As TV programs, newspaper travel sections, cheap travel opportunities, tourist brochures and popular travelogues commodify every global site as a potential tourist destination, it becomes impossible to distinguish between the banal and the extraordinary. As Zygmunt Bauman has argued, this intense commodification means that the tourist is one of the most significant subject positions in our globalized world (1995, 1997). The tourist is both voyeur and

GAZING AT GROUND ZERO 15

consumer—acquiring goods, lifestyles, aesthetics, and political stances from a global marketplace. Building on Debord’s idea of the spectacle, Bauman suggests that the world has become a giant theme park, commodified and pack- aged for the enjoyment of tourists.

By combining Baudrillard’s “catastrophe cannibalism”, Debord’s “society of the spectacle” and Bauman’s “world-as-theme-park”, it becomes possible to see how tourists consume sites of disaster like Ground Zero alongside shopping malls, historic monuments, and Disneyland. As Don Delillo argues, even massive waste landfill sites are tourist attractions in the “world-as-theme-park”:

[they are] scenery of the future. Eventually the only scenery left. The more toxic the waste, the greater the effort and expense the tourist will be willing to toler- ate in order to visit the site … And the hot stuff, the chemical waste, the nuclear waste, this becomes a remote landscape of nostalgia. Bus tours and postcards, I guarantee it. (1998, p. 286)

If there is no place, no time, no event that is free from the commodifying forces of global tourism, then even “black spots” like Ground Zero and toxic landfill sites can be turned into profitable destinations (Rojek 1993). This does not mean, however, that tourist responses to sites of atrocity are any less complex. I am not suggesting that all tourists in a “world-as-theme-park” behave in mechanized and sanctioned ways, and that those behaviors continue in sites of atrocity. I want to defend the possibility that tourists are perfectly aware of the society of the spectacle—that tourists know the world is mediated and commodified for their consumption. What I am suggesting is that even for “reflexive” tourists, sites of atrocity function in specific ways with respect to “the real”. These sites are coveted because they are the only places left which haven’t been commod- ified and turned into a spectacle. In effect, the only “real” thing anymore, the only thing that can be differentiated from the surrounding spectacle, is catastro- phe. Everything else is mediated, simulated, banal.

Authenticity and Voyeurism

As the visitors on the viewing platform reveal, tourists in the “world-as-theme- park” are active in their desire to touch something real. These were not the passive tourists so often ridiculed in popular culture; rather, these were visitors who were very explicit about what they came to see (Ground Zero) and why they came to see it (to touch reality). Positioning sites of catastrophe, violence and mass death as the only real sites remaining in a “world-as-theme-park” suggests that it is possible to escape the society of the spectacle. However, as the visitors gazed at the rubble of the WTC from the viewing platform, they expressed disap- pointment that “the real” was “not like it was on TV”. And this is where the polit- ical force of Baudrillard, Debord and Bauman resonates most clearly: it is precisely where we expect to see “the real” unveiled most clearly that it disap-

16 LISLE

pears into a spectacle. As poststructuralism has taught us, there is no way “the real” can ever present itself in raw form—it is always mediated within the discur- sive terrain. Rather, we are seduced by a discourse of authenticity that convinces us it is actually possible to access the real. This discourse is nowhere more appar- ent than in the practices of tourism. In discussing the tourists at Dachau concen- tration camp, Jenny Edkins reveals how the discourse of authenticity is ultimately depoliticizing:

The focus on authenticity, like the focus on truth, is a search for a chimera that distracts from the need to face the horror. Like the word “frightful”, the search for certainty in the form of authenticity or truth can be a shield against uncom- fortable questions. (2001, p. 417)

By foregrounding our need to face the horror, Edkins suggests a further difficulty in interpreting tourist behavior on the viewing platform. For alongside a discourse of authenticity there is an attending discourse of voyeurism that perpetually displaces horror and puts it beyond reach.

Psychoanalytic theories tell us that voyeurism is the desire to look upon some- thing that is forbidden.4 But there is always a simultaneous desire for, and repul- sion of, the object under scrutiny. For example, visitors knew beforehand that the sight of Ground Zero would make them feel nauseous, but somehow they were driven to see it—they couldn’t help themselves. The repulsion entailed in voyeurism is perhaps easier to understand, for it most often comes out in terms of moral judgment. Gazing at catastrophe is a bad thing—it is disrespectful for the victims and unhealthy for the spectators. These are precisely the moral judg- ments expressed by those who were appalled at Ground Zero’s transformation into a tourist attraction. As Tim Cole explains, similar sentiments are at work in sites of mass death like Auschwitz:

Part of the popularity of “Auschwitz-land” lies in its being a site of “significant” mass death, there can be little doubt that an element of voyeurism is central to “Holocaust tourism”. It is the ultimate rubbernecker’s experience of passing by and gazing at someone else’s tragedy. In visiting the sites of death we are afforded a degree of titillation, albeit titillation camouflaged by more “worthy” reasons for coming. (2000, p. 114)

It is easy to sympathize with Cole’s accusation of “rubbernecking”, but I want to argue that making negative judgments about the voyeurism of disaster tourists is too simple. Arguing that voyeurism is wrong not only fails to acknowledge the totalizing reach of both tourism and spectacle, it also fails to account for why people feel the need to gaze upon sites of tragedy in person. People are not just

4. Psychoanalytic theories describe voyeurism as the sexual pleasure aroused in the act of looking upon a forbidden object of desire. As Freud’s arguments make clear, voyeurism is the condition that allows repressed sexual feelings to emerge (Freud 1976, 1975; Calvert 2000). While this paper takes some of its reference points from psychoanalytic theory (especially in terms of forbidden desire), it investigates the object of horror rather than the object of sexual fantasy.

GAZING AT GROUND ZERO 17

repulsed by sites of horror—they are also attracted to them as possible containers of authenticity and reality. And it is this desire to visit and gaze upon sites of atrocity that presents a much more complex political problem—one that cannot be dismissed with clean moral judgments.5 Rather, voyeurism must be under- stood as a powerful discourse that regulates our consumption of catastrophe, disaster and violence through both desire and repulsion. In this respect, Baudril- lard’s arguments about “catastrophic cannibalism” are especially relevant in terms of the viewing platform, for he adds an important public dimension to the discourse of voyeurism. In psychoanalytic terms, the object that so fascinates and repulses the voyeur remains locked in the private sphere. But the viewing platform disrupts this public/private distinction by placing the object of the voyeur’s gaze—Ground Zero—in the public realm. What is fascinating about the viewing platform is that it animated a new form of public voyeurism. Millions of visitors shared the anxiety of both desiring to see the remains of the WTC and being repulsed by those desires. Millions of visitors were driven by the possibility of witnessing something authentic, but shamed by the voyeurism required to gaze upon “the real”.

Communal experiences of voyeurism have traditionally been explained through Enlightenment notions of the sublime—that strange combination of terror and beauty that so fascinated thinkers like Kant, Burke and Wordsworth (Ashfield & De Bolla 1996; Bell & Lyall 2001). But theories of the sublime are problematic because they locate the object of the gaze in nature—it is only by confronting tall mountains, waves crashing on the shore, and deep canyons, that feelings of terror and beauty are provoked. Theories of the sublime are also problematic because they offer the possibility of transcendence through God. A person feels humble before such great feats of nature, and is thus renewed in their divine belief. Given the arguments by Baudrillard, Debord and Bauman, it is difficult to see how ideas about “nature” and “transcendence” can emerge from cultural sites in secular space. In other words, Enlightenment notions of the sublime seem impotent at Ground Zero. It is easy to understand how terror is

5. Psychoanalytic film theory is helpful in explaining the mediated desire for horror because it argues that all cinema is voyeuristic. Christian Metz developed the idea of voyeurism in relation to how the spectator is brought into the political apparatus of cinema and forced to maintain a measured distance between himself (subject) and whatever is on the screen (object) (Metz 1986, pp. 245–278). Also important here is Laura Mulvey’s reconfiguration of voyeurism in terms of scopo- philia—the pleasure of looking. She argues that all cinema encourages “scopophilic voyeurism” because we get pleasure sitting in darkened theatres peering into the lives and stories of other people. But Mulvey’s work is also important for its political edge—she argues that the scopophilic voyeurism we experience in the cinema organizes subjects according to wider power structures. Because Mulvey is particularly concerned with the power structure of patriarchy, she explains how scopophilic voyeurism positions men as the controlling subjects of the gaze, and women as the gazed-upon objects (Mulvey 1989). Her claims are further politicized by Norman Denzin, who argues that cinema has contributed to the general rise of voyeurism in our society. The ever-presence of voyeurism can be identified by the fact that we are all being watched (through CCTV and other forms of surveillance), and we are all watching others through widened access to technologies of representation (cinema, television, the internet). Denzin argues that because society is now governed by the practice of “watching”, the voyeur has become the primary subject position through which our social behavior is organized and regulated (1995).

18 LISLE

invoked by the fallen Twin Towers, but quite another to claim that this site is also beautiful. This is especially relevant given that there is nothing “spectacu- lar” to see: as the recovery activities ended and clean-up crews gave way to construction workers, all that has been visible at Ground Zero since June 2002 is a massive building site. But the notion of transcendence presents a particular problem at Ground Zero. Visiting the WTC rubble in November 2001, Salman Rushdie invoked notions of transcendence in the feeling of community shared between individuals gazing at Ground Zero: “I saw my own bewilderment reflected in the eyes of those who had gathered at the site—not, I believe, as voyeurs, but out of a graver, more honourable compulsion to bear witness” (2002, p. 3). The problem here is that claims of “transcendence through commu- nity” silence the difficult question of who has the right to bear witness at Ground Zero. Any effort to make 11 September a universal experience covers over the specific political context of the atrocity. Indeed, the assumption that dignitar- ies, celebrities, officials and the families of victims had more of a right to visit Ground Zero resulted in officials building a separate viewing platform just for them (Kurgan 2002). Tourists could search for their own form of transcendence on the plywood construction, but it would pale in comparison with the “genuine” feelings expressed by those on the VIP platform. Notions of universality and tran- scendence also efface the symbolism of the WTC target and the long-standing global political tensions that have resulted from America’s position as a lone superpower. For Noam Chomsky, 11 September was quite understandable: it simply expressed the huge “reservoir of bitterness and anger” that many people feel about the prevailing global order generally, and about America’s foreign policy specifically (2001, p. 116). Claiming that 11 September is about “all of humanity” actually silences the process by which the category of “we” in the civilized world—the “we” who were wounded by the events of 11 September—is produced over and against a category of otherness. By failing to acknowledge the specific political context of 11 September—both locally and globally—we are in danger of reproducing the hierarchies, differences and exclusions that are smuggled into Rushdie’s claim of “universal transcendence”.

Critical Viewing

For nearly all of 2002, the temporary viewing platform at Ground Zero produced a complex conjunction of tourism, voyeurism and spectacle. Some visitors discovered profound feelings of belonging as the viewing platform allowed them to share their grief, confusion and anger with other visitors. Some visitors felt inadequate on the viewing platform as “normal” tourist behavior felt inappropri- ate and disrespectful. But will these difficult and conflicting responses continue as Daniel Libeskind’s designs for the new WTC site are implemented? Along with the “Park of Heroes” and the “Wedge of Light” intended to memorialize the victims of 11 September, Libeskind decided to incorporate a permanent viewing platform in his design:

GAZING AT GROUND ZERO 19

We all came to see the site, more than 4 million of us, walking around it, peering through the construction wall, trying to understand that tragic vastness. So I designed an elevated walkway, a space for a Memorial promenade encircling the memorial site. Now everyone can see not only Ground Zero but the resurgence of life. (2003)

As Ground Zero is normalized and integrated back into the life of Lower Manhattan, it remains to be seen whether that year of spontaneous public voyeurism changed our understanding of tourism. Certainly, the rapid commodi- fication of Ground Zero illustrates the totalizing nature of the tourist gaze, for its practices of assimilation and transformation exclude nothing. But the potent mixture of titillation and shame experienced on the viewing platform suggests a reflexivity not often ascribed to tourists. In taking their photographs and obliga- tory video footage, perhaps visitors wondered how to locate these images along- side their memories of Disneyland and the Grand Canyon. Perhaps they realized that the world is indeed a theme park of mediated realities, and that their access to Ground Zero was just as stage managed as their access to other New York City tourist attractions. And perhaps, as they gazed upon the rubble of the WTC, they were reminded of the rubble being created elsewhere in the world— in Afghanistan, in Iraq—in the name of “civilization” and “democracy”. Libeskind’s decision to include a viewing platform in the new WTC complex recognizes that tourism is not necessarily a passive and objectionable form of capitalist consumption. It suggests that tourists are willing to be confronted with irresolvable questions of politics, ethics and violence. It is possible that the permanent viewing platform will function not as a means to an end, but as a memorial in itself—one that both commemorates and inspires a more politicized form of tourism.

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