Following are excerpts
from a TV show with Lebanese video-clip director Yahya Saadeh, which
aired on MTV on December 17, 2010. Shortly after giving this interview, Saadeh was electrocuted to death, while directing a video-clip in
Turkey.
Interviewer: You
support the 9/11 attacks. How can anybody support the killing of more
than 3,000 people?
Yahya Saadeh:
The magnitude or the extravaganza of the 9/11 incidents – you cannot
but feel humbled by an event of such magnitude.
Interviewer: You
support this method? I understand that you support the idea and the
message it conveyed, but do you support the method as well?
Yahya Saadeh:
All these things are connected. The event was live, on every broadcast
worldwide.
Interviewer: It's
a show, then?
Yahya Saadeh:
Yes, it's a part of the show, and the show must go on.
Interviewer: The
show must go on?
Yahya Saadeh:
Exactly. But every show has a certain conclusion. And the conclusion
from 9/11 is why the world...
Interviewer: Let's
change the lighting to yellow.
Interviewer hits a
button, changing the color of the studio lighting
What in 9/11 made you
so optimistic?
Yahya Saadeh:
It drew the attention of American or European society – the foreign
societies – to the reason why the world shouts so aggressively. What
did we do to them to make them need to carry out something so big, and
to harm us to such an extent – because if we had not done anything
to them, they wouldn't have had to do it. This question has arisen,
as well it should.
Interviewer: Would
you be saying the same thing if someone close to you had been harmed
in one of those planes or buildings?
Yahya Saadeh:
Unfortunately, many things in life teach you that it is survival of
the fittest. Of course, the connection or the physical communication
that you have with your friends and your relatives make it very difficult
for you as an individual.
Interviewer: If
you had been on the plane, would you have thought the same thing? Hypothetically,
would you have thought: I support this cause, so it's fine with me?
Yahya Saadeh:
I would not have thought it during those exact seconds. I did not reach
this conclusion the moment I saw the Twin Towers collapse. When I saw
them fall, I grabbed my head and said: What's going on? But when you
see the evolution of the incident, you see its results and what is generated,
and you learn to appreciate it.
[...]