death and freedom
I’m coming out of retirement for one last score a message that is pretty important to me, and that I am apparently too chicken to deliver to the world at large any way but anonymously. I swore that I would make no political statements on this blog, but I can’t restrain myself.
When I heard that Osama bin Laden was dead, I did not feel joy. I did not feel a sense of triumph or victory or relief or pleasure. I felt nothing.
I have grieved over 9/11, and the subsequent major alterations to daily life in America, in my turn. I have done that work. I have given the event and its repercussions (so far…they will be vibrating on for decades to come) enough thought, as far as I can tell from here. I was as horrified as anyone else at what suddenly existed when I woke up that morning, and what existed the following morning, and the morning after.
But I will never feel any pleasure at the death of another human. No matter what he has done. That is a dangerous road.
The only response from a world leader that I liked was that of the Vatican:
“Osama bin Laden, as we all know, had the very grave responsibility of spreading division and hatred amongst the people, causing the death of countless of people, and of instrumentalizing religion for this end. In front of the death of man, a Christian never rejoices but rather reflects on the grave responsibility of each one in front of God and men, and hopes and commits himself so that every moment not be an occasion for hatred to grow but for peace.”
I am no Catholic, but I find this appropriate and largely correct.
This morning, I heard on the radio that one of my state’s senators said that she felt relief of the same caliber as when she was a little girl and her parents told her that Hitler was dead. I also heard a jokey bit juxtaposing Obama’s announcement speech with the song “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid. I said, aloud, “This does not become you.”
It’s not flattering, America, to be dancing on graves. It’s not the way forward. Death does not equal justice; that philosophy leaves the whole world dead.
And, you know, aside from all this finger-shaking I have to do (this is a very high horse, up here, helloooooo), I feel the need to point out logically that this does not suddenly undo the last ten years. A father who lost his twenty-three-year-old son in the World Trade Center said in a well-taken opinion piece that this does not bring his son back. Nor, in my opinion, does it right the wrongs of Guantanamo Bay, waterboarding, wiretapping, and all the divisiveness, partisanship, and religious hatred that has inflamed your country and mine during the last decade. Nor does it somehow lift the black cloud of paranoia and directionless fear that has settled upon us, seemingly with permanency. We were looking for something to make us safe again, I suppose, and people have settled on the death of this man as the event that activates that forcefield. Now we are safe.
No, it doesn’t work like that. Whatever Osama bin Laden wanted to do to our country and our way of life, he has done. He and his ilk succeeded too long ago for his death to carry much meaning for me. I feel no safer today than I did yesterday. But that’s because my sense of safety does not depend on who lives and dies in a cult of fanatics halfway around the world; it depends on whether I decide to leave my house in the morning.
We can stay inside forever, and be safe, or we can go outside, and be free, and damn all the torpedoes, planes, and thieves of freedom – both physical and psychological – who might cross our paths. It’s not up to a bearded man in a desert land to die so that we can be safe. It’s up to us to make ourselves free.
May 3, 2011 at 10:49 am
If you find Americans’ celebration of the death of one of our enemies inappropriate and/or offensive, you’re obviously no valid part or friend of this nation and have a dangerous level of sympathy for the terrorists.
With that attitude you should start fearing the actual Americans around you more than your allies among the terrorists.
Yep, I’m a terrorist. Thanks for outing me. And for your thoughtful comment.
May 3, 2011 at 11:27 am
This from BF, who is too shy to comment himself despite his brilliance:
“I keep thinking about serial killers, people who have killed before and would again if they were free to do so. People whose only cause is malice and destruction. But I don’t think I’d cheer at their execution either. Haven’t so far.
There something about the loss of potentiality in the death of a human that bothers me. We never know what the future brings, but when we kill someone we make the number of futures slightly less infinite. And I don’t think we know enough about anything to make that kind of decision.
That being said, I’ve never lost anyone I care about to the machinations of another human. Maybe I’d feel differently. I’d like to think I wouldn’t.”
May 3, 2011 at 11:56 am
Many around me have given voice to these very same concerns. I think your piece is well written. This is a very complicated topic.
Unfortunately, for some, there is a world divided between good and evil, and these forces are at war, for eternity. I am no terrorist sympathizer. I love my freedom and my country. I still think its the best place in the world.
Humans of all cultures have danced in victory on the graves of their enemies. And I must admit that if someone killed my brother, I would seek him out and destroy him, perhaps with words of kindness, perhaps with gifts, perhaps with a .45 caliber pistol. I cannot know without experiencing such a theft. I would rather live with the karma from avenging my brother’s death than let the killer live his life in a cushy prison cell where they get free cable TV, Free access to weight rooms and baseball fields and basketball courts, free meals and free laundry service.
Of course, if my words could somehow heal the wound, I would prefer that. I would love to spin the enemy into my friend, but if this could happen everywhere, it would not be a balanced situation, and what would I learn?
They had to kill Osama bin Laden because he would not be captured. He went out in a blazing wild east gun battle, just the way he imagined it. If he was captured alive, the mobs would have ripped him to pieces. The mob is the masses, the emotional masses, still pained by the events of 9/11. If this brings closure to thousands or even millions of people, so be it. Now they don’t have an excuse to be depressed and fearful. Let them prove to us that the closure is real and not just a passing fad, a blind participation in maddness.
May our fear dissolve, no matter its source.
Thank you for your (genuinely) thoughtful comment.
May 3, 2011 at 12:29 pm
I agree that your piece is very well-written. bin Laden’s death isn’t going to undo anything that has happened in the last 10 years, nor is it going to stop the rest of al-Qaida from trying to retaliate for his death. bin Laden succeeded at what he set out to do – he took away our freedom and our joy in life when he orchestrated 9/11 (or rather, we let our government take that away from us in the name of “security” from terror). His death doesn’t change any of that and none of those “security” measures are going to go away. We’ve permanently lost those freedoms and will never get them back – there will always be another group of terrorists to justify evermore stringent security measures. That’s a sad commentary on America and what it values – security over freedom.
Yes, exactly.
May 3, 2011 at 12:41 pm
I must add the following, which seems exceptionally appropriate as a postscript to this finished post:
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably. …The first time any man’s freedom is trodden on, we’re all damaged.
…Villains who twirl their mustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged…waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness.”
The author of these words is Jeri Taylor.
May 4, 2011 at 8:03 am
I thought your post was excellent, and right along the lines of the discussions I had with Dys and my coworkers that morning. Honestly, I was so utterly flabbergasted by that first comment that I was completely derailed and decided that I’d just come back and comment on yours later.
I found out about Bin Laden via text message from Dys. I’d gone to bed ridiculously early to catch up on some sleep, and I habitually check my texts when I wake up in the morning, and she’d sent me a note to remind me to talk to Boy about it in the morning. So, groggily at 6am I processed this news.
Ten minutes later, in the shower, as I gradually came awake, I started to really think about it. And my thought was, essentially: “If his death meant the end of terrorism, or the end of the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, I might be happy. As it is, great, we lost thousands of lives and spent hundreds of billions of dollars, and now we killed one guy. It changes almost nothing.”
Do I think the world is a better place without him? Absolutely. Just like with Saddam Hussein. But the fact that he’s dead doesn’t change the way I feel one iota. And, like several others have said, including Dys in that first text message, seeing people cheering on the White House lawn is not a response I find appropriate. As much as it angered us to see Palestinians cheering on 9/11, we should not have been so quick to adopt such ugliness ourselves.
In short, I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that you expressed. And while I have not been shocked to see such commentary as that first comment around the ‘net, I have been no less saddened by my lack of surprise. Yet it was particularly stunning and horrifying to see it hit a good friend so close to home. An unwelcome reminder of just how ugly a world we now live in. I don’t think Bin Laden created all of that hatred, but he certainly gave it a conduit – one that will, sadly, outlive him.
Thanks for your thoughts.
May 5, 2011 at 8:03 pm
As a bit of a related note, I live in West Alabama. We were recently hit with a really, really, huge-ass tornado that destroyed about a third of the city of Tuscaloosa, MY city. We were mentioned quite frequently in the days following, and people, good people, from all over the country came to help us out. Then the news broke about bin Laden. And like that, our two days of attention faded.
I can understand people feeling safer, no matter if they are or not. I can maybe even understand a little joy in the most die-hard Jingoists. But it pisses off a lot of people, myself included, that the dancing on bin Laden’s grave comes just as we are digging many of our own. If it were a developing story, and people needed updates, I would understand completely. Instead, it is nothing more than a glorified celebration. People died on 9/11. But people died on 4/27 here, and are still dying. Lauding another death is wrong, on every conceivable level. But “reporting” for days on end about nothing BUT lauding a death is nothing short of pathetic.
A media effigy is not fucking news.
May 7, 2011 at 4:23 am
Thank you for posting this. It is difficult, outside America, to know just what is going on behind the footage we are seeing – there is something uncomfortable behind much of it, like… I’m not sure what it’s like. I want to say like a fake sugar substitute – it’s almost the same but there’s an odd taste. We have seen – first and second hand – so much damage and destruction and loss and heroism and kindness and joy and tragedy in our floods, the NZ earthquake, the Japan tsunami, the tornadoes in the US and NZ and most of that seems primal and genuine. But all we see is, of course, filtered through news which is either highly critical of the US reaction, or over-the-top sensational.
May 7, 2011 at 4:24 am
PS – “One last score” = hehe.