I’m an American who works abroad. Today I woke up earlier than usual and while soberly checking the international news, I saw immediately (and everywhere) that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Good news, I suppose. The almost mythical leader of Al-Qaeda, who nearly everyone had forgotten about, was dead and dumped in the sea. He had been irrelevant for long, I thought, but perhaps his death would lead to some much-needed reflection about the catastrophe that was the last decade. Right.
I will not remember today for Osama’s death. I will remember it for the way I felt watching the videos of my countrymen celebrating in the streets of New York and Washington. I don’t recognize them, these people waving flags, singing, and pouring their jubilation into the night because we killed someone. And what about all the others that have been killed? During 10 years we spent unbelievable amounts of blood and treasure, enacted unthinkable civil liberties legislation, and turned ourselves into brutes for this.
And there we were out on the streets. Brutes. We have become brutes.
Yes, the world is a better place without Osama bin Laden. But I fear what this has brought out in us. The structural factors that create Osama bin Ladens still exist, and unless we work to change those, we will continue to undermine ourselves by giving our attention to tomorrow’s straw man.
Fuck this guy. I understand completely if you’re not comfortable with celebrating this. I get it. It’s very ugly, and I’m not going to lose any respect for you for reacting to it in your own way. But don’t you think any less of me for being happy about it. I watched the celebrations last night and I was nearly in tears. I wanted to be there.
I’m a liberal and I strongly oppose the death penalty in almost all cases. But I do sincerely believe that there are some people who just shouldn’t be alive. Osama bin Laden was such a person. He was a fascist. He murdered thousands of innocent people. He wanted nuclear weapons. His ultimate goal was to spread religious fascism over the entire planet. If he had an industrialized nation behind his back, he would’ve been worse than Hitler. You’re god damn right I’m celebrating his death. Sic semper tyrannis. Thus always to tyrants.
I guess I am sounding a bit brutish and immature and angry right now, you’re absolutely right. Maybe it’s because I watched the towers fall on live TV when I was a fucking fourteen year old kid. That might have something to do with it. I’m not surprised in the least at the way my generation is acting right now. Can you imagine the psychological effects 9/11 must have had on us? The monster who has been haunting our psyches for half our lives is gone forever, and you have the gall to call us “brutes” for being happy about it? Fuck off.
Don’t try to tie this into Afghanistan and Iraq. This doesn’t change a damn thing in those wars, and it sure as hell doesn’t justify them. Iraq never had anything to do with 9/11, and Al Qaeda hasn’t been in Afghanistan for two years. Those wars are still meaningless, and we need to continue opposing them.
I too was 14 years old when I watched the towers fall. I walked to 2nd period science class where the TVs were already on CNN, and I got the story from the classroom discussion as I saw the 2nd plane hit, live. That day, I saw burning bodies plummeting from hundreds of feet in the air. I saw the ashen thunderheads consume the frantic crowds and leave nothing but darkness in its wake. I saw my own mortality that day. I know you did as well.
ReplyDeleteThen, over the next 11 years, I asked questions, I researched. I kept my eye on what I could, when I could. I learned that violence only begets violence. I also learned the difference between the narrative our media has spun for us, and the "other" reality. A reality of impossibly tangled webs of corruption, fascism and greed that sprung forth, answering our pained wretches of blind, jingoist fervor with a message of salvation. A path out of this wasteland.
So why, after witnessing the same horrible event 11 years ago, do I meet the news of Osama's death with sobering worry?
A blog comment doesn't provide enough space to adequately spell out the whole rationale behind my mindset, as it's the culmination of 11 years of personal awakening, worldly education, and sobering recognition. I feel Kurt Vonnegut sums it up best with a quote from "Mother Night".
"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side."
You, a young, impressionable 1st-world citizen witnessing the harbinger of the collapse of his homeland had the capacity for evil. It's been unlocked, and your admission of "brutishness and immaturity" is your attempt to grapple with the fact that your worldview has been compromised, and in its place, a wall of vaguery. A "notion" of history, heavily guarded by nationalistic pride, and cemented by cloud of confusion so opaque, all your senses will allow you to do is to keep running from it, and hope it's in the right direction.
it's not.
You shouldn't assume so many things about me. I'd like to think I'm not very "impressionable" at all, precisely because I believe that ideas like nationalism and god are so utterly meaningless. If anything, you're the impressionable one for depending on Vonnegut quotes to define your entire philosophy. This isn't about being proud of a dying country. People like Osama bin Laden want to impose theocratic fascism on every living person on earth, and they should be treated with hatred, ridicule, and contempt. Humanity has shed too much blood in the process of throwing off such tyranny. They need to be destroyed with extreme prejudice, or they'll drag the rest of us back down into the dark ages with them. Their opinions are vile and worthless, and they have no place in the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of sounding like a right wing broken record, I really do believe in "Liberty or death" in the complete literal sense. It is the only philosophy answerable to the "slavery or death" jargon the theocratic fascists preach. I would never bow to Osama bin Laden's will, and he would kill me for it. I am going to feel hatred for him, and I am not going to be ashamed of it.
If you're not comforted by the thought of bin Laden being shot in the face at close range, and tossed into the ocean to fill the bellies of whatever lives down there, that's you're business. If you expect me to shed a tear for those who grow opium to fund bombs meant to blow up children, then you're kidding yourself.