As America marks the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, our freedoms not threatened by any particular religion or nation. Rather, said Channel 3 News anchorman Tim White, hatred and ignorance threaten our freedom.

White, who delivered the keynote address at a community remembrance ceremony Sunday evening at the Westlake Schools Performing Arts Center, expressed confidence that Americans will rise to successfully defeat that threat.

“We will rise to meet that hatred and ignorance as Americans always have,” said White, a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

White recalled that on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, he was preparing a speech on the impact of international events on Cleveland he was scheduled to deliver later that day. After the newsroom called him and told him of the attacks, he tore up his speech and reported for work.

Noting how quickly time passes, White expressed concern that future generations would come to view 9-11 as an event lost in the past.

“We dare not let the day come when any of our children think somehow 9-11 is something that belonged only to us and passes with time,” White said.

Some things have changed since the Twin Towers fell, White said, like Americans’ sense of invulnerability. Our often casual regard for those who defend and protect us — members of the Armed Forces, our police and firefighters — has also vanished after the attacks, he said.

“Somehow they became extraordinarily central to our lives, as if they hadn’t been all along,” White said. “We had just forgotten how important they were.”

Members of the Community Chorus sing “Psalm of Hope” during a remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks Sunday evening at the Westlake Schools Performing Arts Center. (Photo by Larry Bennet)

After the attacks, Americans became more aware that the world can be a dangerous place, White said.

“We learned that there are people in this imperfect world of ours who don’t want to talk with us, reason with us, hear our explanations or our beliefs, or take stock of what really good folks we are,” he said. “They simply want to kill us. All of us.

“But they’re a really small number of people driven by a hatred, driven by an ideology, not a religion.”

Americans are still seen around the world as people who will rise up and fight for not only ourselves but also the principles of freedom and tolerance, White said.

“The principles of freedom and tolerance aren’t something that can be frightened out of us,” White said. “We will fight, to the death if necessary, to protect them and defend them, just as we fight to protect and defend our neighborhoods and the symbols of our country.”

Jenna Daghstani, now a member of Westlake High School’s student council, recalled how she tried to comprehend the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as a fourth grader.

“It was like a bad dream,” said Daghstani, who read an essay about Sept. 11. “Those were real buildings with real people in them....Here on the TV was a nightmare taking place over and over.”

But she also recalled witnessing something just as memorable in the days that followed the tragedy.

“Flags appeared on houses down my street. We put out our flag,” Daghstani recalled. “Our community came together sharing our grief. There were prayer services. There were people donating money. Out of the rubble of ground zero, a more unified, patriotic nation seemed to arise.”

The Rev. Donald Snyder, pastor of St. Ladislas Catholic Church, noted that some in the audience had personal recollections of other dates that had also been seared into the nation’s consciousness — Dec. 7, 1941, and Nov. 22, 1963.

“All great nations and good people have a memory that keep them both grounded and focused,” Snyder said in opening remarks. “Grounded in knowing who they are and where they have been. And focused, knowing where they must yet chart a course and a destiny they must yet fulfill. Tonight...we reflect on the greatness of this nation and the difficulty of maintaining freedom.”

In the closing prayer, Snyder spoke of the need to build, “not simply reconstruct the world as it was before Sept. 11, 2001, but to build a new world — a world that remembers and learns.”

Also during the ceremony, Fuad Hamed, a trustee of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, read a chapter of the Quran in Arabic and English. The Westlake High School Chorale performed “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The Community Chorus performed “Psalm of Hope.”