CREDIT: Brent Foster, National Post Erica Basnicki, who lost her father in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, takes a moment to herself during a reflection held by Canadian Families of Victims of 9/11 on Wednesday.
Posted on 09/10/2005 11:06:00 AM PDT by fanfan
Tomorrow will mark four years since Erica Basnicki lost her father in the World Trade Center inferno. At Ground Zero in New York City tomorrow, there will be pomp and tributes, and the siblings of those killed will read a list of the 2,749 dead, including Kenneth Basnicki, one of the 26 Canadians who died in the attacks.
Maureen Basnicki, Ken's widow, will attend but Erica will not. For her, it is too painful.
"My dad always used to say, 'Get over it, get on with it. Stop crying,' " Erica said this week, during an interview in the backyard of her family's townhouse in Toronto. "I can't bring him back. He would kill me if I didn't get on with my life."
Erica Basnicki will spend tomorrow morning alone in Toronto. She will observe the four minutes of silence: 8:46 a.m., when the first plane struck the North Tower; 9:03 a.m., when the second plane struck; 9:59 a.m., when the South Tower collapsed; and 10:29 a.m., when the North Tower crumpled. She'll watch whatever part of the tribute is broadcast on CNN. Then she'll go out with friends.
And next Friday, she and her roommate from Ryerson University, Azin Jenab, fly to Naples for a long-needed, much delayed three-month romp through central and eastern Europe.
"I just want to feel normal, average, blend in with the crowd," Ms. Basnicki says.
Ms. Basnicki, who graduated from journalism school this June, looks like your average 25-year-old Canadian girl. Her hair is dyed red, both her ears are pierced in any number of places; she's wearing a black T-shirt from a Vancouver rock band, Billy the Kid & The Lost Boys, and, at 6:30 p.m., she is drinking an Alexander Keith's beer. B.J., the family's miniature schnauzer, snoozes nearby. On Ms. Basnicki's ring finger is an engagement rock -- a fake one, which she says she bought to ward off men in Turkey.
But on her right wrist is a blue bracelet, of the style Lance Armstrong popularized, that reads, "Families of Sept. 11. Remember. Honour. Hope." Get talking to her and you realize Sept. 11 has aged her far beyond her years. After well over 100 interviews, she has become media-savvy, politicized and world-weary. For four years, she's been spokeswoman for the families of Canadian victims; "this poster girl for 9/11," as she puts it.
Of course, it was a role Ms. Basnicki took willingly. The day after the attacks, her father, a 48-year-old marketing director with software maker BEA Systems -- who was at a meeting on the 106th floor of Tower 1 -- was still listed as missing. Her mother, an Air Canada flight attendant, was stranded in Germany and Erica was at her grandmother's house. A knock came at the door. It was Mark Daley of Toronto's CityTV.
"My granny was like, 'Go away! Go away!' And I said, 'Granny, you can't do that. He's the gentle giant! I'm in journalism. I know what they want.' " She granted an interview.
"I knew as soon as Mark showed up that there would be lots more," she said. The next few weeks are a blur. "I was running around from studio to studio. I would be on the phone and then hang up and then hear the beep: 'You have eight new voice messages.' "
Talking to the media, she says, has helped her cope. "It's a validation that this was huge. There were Canadians involved. I wanted people to know that it was my dad. I'm a talker. I need to talk and get it out of me."
Gradually, Ms. Basnicki's pain evolved into anger. Last Wednesday at a Toronto women's club, Canadian 9/11 victims' families linked up with the families of those killed in the 1985 Air India bombing for a "reflection." Erica's mother was there, along with her brother, Brennan, plus Tanya Tomasevic and Cindy Barkway, who both lost husbands Sept. 11. The 9/ll families had never met the Air India families; a third group, Toronto police, stood to one side, waiting for the event to begin. Someone needed to pull 75 people together and make a unified statement. Erica Basnicki rose to the occasion. "The sheer volume of people here is pretty overwhelming," she began.
Later, referring to both the 9/11 and Air India victims, she said, "We remember who killed them. And the families still don't have justice. We want to stay at 300 families. How big of a group do we have to be before the governments take notice?"
These families want the Canadian government to amend the State Immunity Act and the criminal code, to allow terror victims' families to sue states or organizations "that provided funding to the terrorist group that killed or injured the plaintiff." The groups also demand an inquiry into the bungled Air India investigation, which ended in acquittals earlier this year.
That's where the common cause ends. Ms. Basnicki opposes the U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying, "I don't think that war is going to at all put an end to terrorism." She adds, "I don't know if Canadian troops in Afghanistan are going to be effective. I don't know why they're there."
She wants Canada to resume its historic role as a peacekeeper. "We once had a very strong reputation for peacekeeping," she says. "We are resting on our laurels. Our politicians now can only care about how much power they hold."
"Paul Martin says 'We'll do our part to defeat terrorists,' " she says. But she questions his methods. "Maybe giving victims the power to tie up their money helps more," she says.
Those battles are for another day. Right now, Ms. Basnicki is heading to Italy, to get lost in a crowd.
"When you're 25 it's normally, 'Do I have enough for a concert ticket? What are we doing this weekend?' And 'Oh, I need a job.' I long to be average. Maybe I just need to go away and be average for a few years."
CANADIANS LOST
Canadians killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack:
Michael Arczynski
Garnet (Ace) Bailey
David Barkway
Kenneth Basnicki
Jane Beatty
Cynthia Connolly
Aarron Caleb Dack
Frank Joseph Doyle
Christine Egan
Michael Egan
Albert (Alfy) William Elmarry
Meredith Ewart
Peter Feidelberg
Alexander Filipov
Ralph Gerhardt
Herb Homer
Stuart Lee
Mark Ludvigsen
Bernard Mascarenhas
Colin McArthur
Michel Pelletier
Donald Robson
Ruffino (Roy) Santos
Vladimir Tomasevic
Chantal Vincelli
Debbie Williams
CREDIT: Brent Foster, National Post Erica Basnicki, who lost her father in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, takes a moment to herself during a reflection held by Canadian Families of Victims of 9/11 on Wednesday.
PING!
Where It's 9-11 All the Time...
Click the picture...
Wow, Backhoe!
Great job on the links.
(As usual!)
:-)
While I live in Los Angeles I was working for Toronto startup company that had hit a cash flow snag
I was only one of two rep's left on the west coast and all work had been suspend till a 4 million cash investment came in from Europe and we got payed...we were getting daily phone calls from the Toronto office as to status.
That Tue morning I had yet to even turn on a radio, TV or Computer so I has no clue as to what was going on.
I then get a call from the Toronto office about 8AM west coast time(so at this point the tower's are down and every thing is full blown) an I think it's just another status update, but the person in Toronto (the CEO wife) assumes I know every thing that has happen and so doesn't say anything about the towers. She is asking how are we doing,is they any thing we can do...I think she talking about us not getting paid for weeks and trying to comfort me to hang in and she thinks she is trying to comfort me about 9/11...
This conversation goes on like this for a few minutes and is just getting odder and odder because we are on completely different pages...
Finally I think she used the word "attack" I asked "What are you talking about?" and she tell me about the attack that both towers are down the Pentagon been hit,another airliner crashed in Penn. and it's all still on going... basically going from what I thought was a business conversation to all of 911 in about 30 sec... my brain striped a few gear there
As it was the topper was the 4 million cash investment coming in from Europe was being transfer by a company in the Trade Center and got stuck in limbo for several week and then the investor pulled the plug.. the Toronto Company went BK owning me about 80 grand...telcom (my biz) went flat and I lost my house, I'm still trying to recover...but it could be worse and it was far worse for many others
Oh, wow.
I'm so sorry.
Man that is tough.
Still in LA? What are you doing now?
You OK yet?
I was just telling the story because it was just an odd way to find out about 911
Still.
:-)
fanfan - Have the people in OUR country forgotten that the currency of freedom IS blood? Bush was NOT wrong to go to Aphghanistan or Iraq!! Canadians, as allies should be supporting that effort to the best of its' ability. I'm so sick of the Liberal/bury your head in the sand/appease terrorists and everyone else mentality!! I guess when Canada gets attacked Central Canada in particular "might" wake up. But then, I suppose that would be GW's fault also. You either fight the terrorists on their turf, or endure their attacks on your own soil. These people HATE the West and all it stands for including us. Why else would they refer to us as "little Satan"???
How pathetic to think you can make peace with the devil!!
Yes. The ones that knew any history have forgotten it, or have only learned the revisionist history on offer in our country for the last 30 years.
What will it take to change them?
A liberal is just a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet.
Ssigh!! Revisionsit history indeed!!
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