End of an Era

This evening I went to a dinner with my dad and, predictably, for part of the time the subject of the talk was Osama's death. Ten years of looking for the most wanted man in the world are over, and understandably, the remarks were gleeful. One man said the only thing that was a pity was that no one could take bin Laden's head and put it on a stick on the White House lawn, or at Ground Zero. Surely many would see poetic justice in that. Another said that if he had been there, he'd have considered shooting bin Laden in the kneecaps, then in the arms, and then in the testicles, before finishing him off.

When I first saw the news last evening, I also felt glad that an end of an "era," so to speak, was over. But when I stepped back and looked at it, I saw little to be joyful about.

I don't blame anyone who feels joy at Osama's death. We live in a world where it does feel good to get justice, but too often I think it is actually revenge disguised as justice. Revenge is to justice what lust is to love in that both are emotionally driven and risk hurting both parties.

Do people's actions outweigh their humanity? What does it say when we rejoice in the streets at a life lost? And are we celebrating the departure of that life, or of a finality to the doer's deeds? It is just the body and mind that dies, and what are those but conditioning?

This does not condone actions of evil of course, but is ever one bloodlust good while another is evil? Ideologies tell us that there is a right and a wrong, a good guy and an evil one, but where is the universe ever so black and white?

I don't consider bin Laden's death a murder. If I had been a soldier in that group, and in the course of the firefight if it fell to me to take him out, I probably would have done it, but there would be no joy in it. Only the feelings of performing a duty as a soldier to defend myself and my comrades. Killing bin Laden only doesn't undo what harm he's done already.

I am not an "ah shucks, just let him go" person. I know what it feels like to want to take a life. Once, a close friend of mine was sexually assaulted and had to get an abortion as a result. I know what it feels like to want revenge on a searing level, and even more, to do it at my own hands. Often, as it was in my case, those chances are not granted, perhaps for the better. But that is not my justice, only my wish for revenge against an ugliness.

I can't suggest what an appropriate justice is in such cases. But my point is, we often forget that it is a human being committing such heinous deeds, and that while the humans' actions are a manifestation of fear and hate, too often we forget that we live in a culture where fear and hate run course through like rabies through an infected brain. If we lust after and celebrate revenge of anyone's death, it is not a sign of a healthy society. This only breeds more madness.

I do not blame anyone who is celebrating the death of a criminal or a terrorist. I am not sorry bin Laden was killed. But I will not rejoice in a death.