Forum addresses psychological state of Americans after stress of 9/11 attacks, murders, war

Members of the UA community and beyond are still suffering from the lingering affects of last year's Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, a UA psychology professor said Monday.

This comes on top of last week's murders of three nursing professors.

A survey taken at Northern Arizona University said people who watched the events on TV had similar emotional reactions as those who experienced it firsthand, UA psychology professor Judith Becker said at a forum Monday on the after effects of Sept. 11, 2001.

Other professors at the forum, which was sponsored by the Tucson chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, an honorary society for the liberal arts and sciences, spoke about the balance between civil liberties and national security, and other changes resulting from the attacks.

Researchers at the University of Michigan interviewed 600 Americans in March, and found that 37 percent of people are still shaken from the attack and 69 percent are still afraid to fly in an airplane.

Residents of New York City are less likely than others surveyed to want to seek retribution for the attacks.

The thing that Becker thought should be remembered in this time of healing is that everyone deals with grief in their own way.

"People can and do heal. People may not forget, but may recover," she said. "People will talk when they're ready and we must be respectful to their actions and reactions."

Associate philosophy professor Thomas Christiano focused on the balance between civil liberties and national security.

The USA Patriot Act, a bill passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, increased the power of intelligence agencies to engage in wiretapping and Internet-monitoring of American citizens.

Christiano asked the audience of 50 to what extent civil liberties could be abridged to enhance the security of citizens and when abridging those liberties is legitimate.

History professor Julia Clancy-Smith outlined three trends that become apparent in times of crisis like Sept. 11: uprisings that create division in society, the struggle for information during crises, and the use of variations in history as a battlefield.

To illustrate divisions in society, she referred to the domestic tension created by former President Richard Nixon's choice to sent troops into Cambodia in 1970.

This caused public outrage and some students died as a result.

During times of crises, like after Sept. 11 or during a possible future war with Iraq, it is really important for there to be fair and open discussion of information ÷ both current and past history, Clancy-Smith said.