On September 11th 2001 Phyllis Rodriguez’s son Greg was killed along with 3000 others when the World Trade Centre collapsed. The following year she met Aicha el-Wafi whose son Zacarias Moussaoui had been charged with conspiracy in connection with the attacks. Aicha had travelled from France to New York for a private meeting with families who had lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks. From that first meeting a strong friendship has developed between the two women. In 2006 Moussaoui received a life sentence for his role in the September 11th terror attacks.

Phyllis

I was listening to a telephone message from Greg saying there had been a terrible accident at the World Trade Center. I didn’t know which tower he worked in, but when I saw on television the second plane crash into the second tower, I knew it was no accident. I rang family and friends and said: ‘He called, he’s OK’. I couldn’t take it in until it was officially announced the following evening that he had perished along with 3000 others.

My husband, our family and I were devastated and what made it all so much worse was knowing that the US government would use our son’s name to take military action abroad. Before Greg died I’d felt a distant empathy for all those parents in the world who had lost children, but now there was deep understanding. We were the same.

The day that I met Aicha was the day that changed my life because it changed my direction emotionally. It was the beginning of my learning that someone like Aicha, who has suffered so much, could still be emotionally generous. It brought out the generosity in me and I felt better for it. Since then I’ve learnt that one way to heal is to bridge the gap between ourselves and the ‘other’. A Moroccan Muslim woman living in France and a secular Jewish woman living in the US are no different because our hearts are joined. It was an accident of history that brought us together and it is an accident of history that Zacarias is now in prison and my son died in the World Trade Centre. It could have been the reverse.

When Greg was killed I thought, I will never forgive the people who murdered my son, but I have come to see forgiveness as more than a word; it’s a context, a process. I don’t forgive the act, but trying to understand why someone has acted in the way he has is part of the process of forgiving. Forgiveness is being able to accept another person for being human and fallible.

Since 2005 when Zacarias pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charges against him, I knew Aicha would be coming to America. I decided I wanted to give her as much support as I could. So we started speaking on the phone. I couldn’t speak a word of French at the time but somehow we managed. Now, I want to continue supporting her in campaigning for the rights of her son. We want to work with human rights organizations to ensure that Zacarias has recourse to legal help and humane treatment in prison. We also hope that someday he will be transferred to France to serve out his sentence. He’s an admitted member of al Qaeda, but there’s no evidence that he knew anything about the September 11th attacks. He pleaded guilty either because he felt it would get him more humane conditions of confinement before his sentence or because he was in no fit state to make any rational decision. When I watched Zacarias at the trial my heart was broken because I could not look at him as a stranger. He is the son of my friend.

Knowing Aicha has given me strength and taken away my anger and bitterness. It has also helped me forgive myself because a mother always feels guilty when things don’t go right for her children.

Aicha

On 13th September 2001 I was in bed and my daughter called me to tell me that Zacarias was on television. I couldn’t recognise my son – the picture was horrible. I knelt down in front of the TV and yelled, “it’s not true, it’s not my son, it’s not possible.” They were suggesting he was connected to the terrorist attacks, but he had been in jail in the States since August 16th for visa violation. The media came straight to my house and didn’t leave for a week. I was beside myself. I couldn’t eat or sleep. Friends said I wasn’t to blame but I said “how can I not feel responsible for something he may have been involved in”. The hardest thing was not knowing. Then on 25th Oct I received a letter from Zacarias saying, “I am an Islamic extremist but I had nothing to do with Sept 11th.”

From then on I decided to speak out for his rights. There has never been a shred of evidence to suggest that he was involved with the attacks. However, when I thought of the people who had died and of their families, I knew my suffering was not the same and I wanted to present my condolences and apologise. While I knew my son was not directly responsible for the attacks, extremist thinking like his had created a climate of hate. The evening before meeting the families I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep but the French Human Rights interpreter I was with encouraged me by telling me I was doing the right thing. The next morning we took the subway and my heart was beating double time as I walked down the hallway. Then I entered the room where all these family members were waiting and my eyes landed on Phyllis – something like a magnet drew me to her. We fell into each other’s arms and cried for a long time. I felt her heart beating as fast as mine. Then everyone introduced themselves; we showed pictures, we talked and after that things were almost normal, though of course nothing was normal. It was painful and wonderful at the same time.

Although I am not responsible for the choices my son has made as an adult, I still feel guilty because I gave birth to him. I so wish that Zacarias hadn’t got involved with al-Qaida but he fell into the hands of crooks. In Bin Laden he was looking for a father figure because his own father was violent with him and then abandoned us. I would have liked him to be loyal to France. I love France because France welcomed me when I arrived from Morocco at the age of 17 and I have never been made to feel a foreigner. But Zacarias was subject to racist abuse all his life. He was called a ‘dirty Arab’ and made to feel like a stranger in his own country.

I feel anger, love and compassion for Zacarias. A part of me is dead, buried with my son who will have to spend the rest of his life in jail for things that he didn't do. He was manipulated. At home he played words games, and in court he played word games……but what was at stake then was his life.