On September 11, 2011 the Consulate General of Italy in New York has commemorated the tenth anniversary of the 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attacks with Italian and Italian-American residents in the USA.
After a moment of silence, the names of the 190 Italian and Italian-American victims were read aloud in the hall in front of the bas relief sculpture created by Antonio Manfredi. Back in 2007 Giorgio Napolitano, the Italian President, had met some of the families of the victims in that same spot.
At the ceremony, among the guests, there were the Ambassador of Italy to the United States Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, the new Consul General in New York Natalia Quintavalle, the deputy head of the Holy See delegation to the UN Francis Chullikat, ex congressman Frank Guarini, Matilda Raffa Cuomo who is the founder of Mentoring USA and the wife of the ex-governor of New York, rabbi Arthur Schneier, Natalia Indrimi, the Director of Centro Primo Levi, Lucio Caputo of Gei, the commissioner of the FDNY Salvatore Cassano, retired FDNY chief Daniel Nigro, representatives of the NYPD, Cgie and Comites, the principal of the Scuola d’Italia Anna Fiore, Luis Tallarini, Chairman of the Columbus Citizen Foundation, Joseph Sciame, President/Chair of the Italian Heritage and Culture Committee.
The Ambassador was kind enough to speak with us and share some of his opinions on September 11 and its aftermath. (Full video in Italian)
“Today's ceremony is simple yet greatly significant as it brings us closer to the affection, the feelings, the solidarity and the anguish of who has suffered and still is suffering tremendously for an act that was simply barbaric.”
“As well as keeping the memory, our memory, of that day alive, we have to concentrate on the power of the relationship between Italy and the United States. Ten years ago, our President affirmed something he just reconfirmed with Obama in a recent communication: we all feel American. We did back then, in that horrible moment, and we do now. We all belong to the same community of values, we are part of the same family, a family comprised of human beings who share the same culture.”
“This commemoration is an act of trust between Italy, the United States, the countries who are close to us, who share a partnership with us, and even those who aren't that close to us but are now starting to appreciate the qualities of democracy. We all are focused on strengthening our values, to face challenges and come together. Together in equality, in a partnership with equal respect, not any sort of supremacy. Together we can grow ideologically and economically.”
“The day after September 11, the Security Council, asked the UN countries to work hard on finding the culprits, condemn who was responsible and fight in all ways possible the reality of terrorism. We all are seriously committed to the preservation of our way of life and the prevention of other terrorist attacks. The United States have done a lot and we support them in their actions. They have created a strong Homeland Security Department, efficient Intelligence Agencies, and useful instruments inside the Ministry of Finance to identify financial sources that, masked as charities and social agencies feed terrorism. We are all contributing to the success of these activities.”
