The horror felt by us all, as the events in the US of ten years ago were beamed around the world on TV, will never leave us.  That day, evil triumphed and the terrorists had their moment. The following military response, whilst controversial, has achieved much of what it set out to achieve – Bin Laden is gone and the abilities of his Al-Qaeda have been severely impeded. Whether or not the West has learned from the underlying foreign policy mistakes of two generations remains to be seen. But today is not the day to focus on such things.

Today, we should remember those lost in the attacks on September 11^th 2001 and celebrate what the citizens of the US have achieved in the time since. The very spirit that made the US the formidable nation it is today is alive and well. The determination of those involved in rebuilding the World Trade Centre, that the US will remain “the  land of the free,” is enviable and should be applauded. This is the attitude that will carry the US forward through the 21^st century and ensure that its people continue to live the dream.

Watching “The Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero” has been truly uplifting – from the stories of those rebuilding their lives, to the entrepreneurial determination of people like Larry Silverstein, to the symbolic sentimentality of the replanting of the survivor tree. And the sheer beauty of the new World Trade Centre will ensure that it becomes one of those places that we will all want to go to at least once before we die. The only grey cloud on the horizon today is the “credible threat” of terrorist activity, attempting to undermine the celebration of triumph over adversity – the threat must not be allowed to be realised; today belongs to New York, to the survivors and to the innocent.