1) It has been exactly nineteen years since the 9/11 attacks.

I suspect there’s not a single person who does not remember where they were, or what they were doing when they heard the news.

2) It was my first day of class at university in Canada. I was seventeen and far away from my family for the very first time.

3) I nervously left my room in the morning, worrying about getting lost looking for the building where I was meant to go for my history course.

4) I took two steps and a dorm mate struck me as he hurried across the floor.

“The Twin Towers were attacked,” he shouted, as I leaned down to pick up my folders.

5) I was dazed. “What Twin Towers?” I thought. I had no idea what he meant.

As I proceeded to walk from one building to another, I noticed students crowd around the television sets.

6) I could tell they were watching news but I couldn’t figure out what had happened. I did not want to be late for my very first class so I did not stop to inquire either.

7) Finally, I arrived at the lecture hall. The professor was already standing at the front of the room. I felt uneasiness in the air as I took my seat.

8) And then, almost in slow motion, the professor broke the news. So many concerned hands darted up in the air, and a chorus of questions filled the room.

But nobody had answers.

9) I was still unable to fathom what had transpired. I tried to jog my mind for an image of the World Trade Center but I came up with nothing.

10) I did not know what the Twin Towers even looked like.

The names Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were just as unfamiliar.

11) But deep down, I sensed the world had changed. I’m sure so did everyone else.

But no one could fathom or articulate how exactly it had changed.

12) The immediate response was America’s woefully misguided "War on Terror" that wreaked havoc in the Middle East.

13) "Once citizens have seen the terrorist drama of the World Trade Center collapsing," wrote @harari_yuval, "the state feels compelled to stage an equally spectacular counterdrama, with even more fire and smoke."

14) The war did not only fail to stop the spread of terrorism, it strengthened terrorists and slid the world into a vicious cycle of escalating violence and increasing insecurity.

15) By 2016, terrorism was at an all-time high, battle deaths from conflict at a 25-year high, and the number of refugees and displaced people (57 million) at a level not seen in 60 years.

16) There had been over 61,000 terrorist attacks globally, killing more than 140,000 people. Nine times more people were killed from terrorism than there were in 2000.

17) I feel that way again in 2020.

We will all remember where we were when Covid struck and the world shutdown.

18) We can all sense the world has changed in a big way.

But it's hard to fathom how exactly or what will transpire next.

It just feels ominous.