I went for a walk last night following the delivery of a book to a friend that was long overdue. The evening was cool and cloudy, with a light wind that rustled leaves and sang among the buildings on campus. It carried the sounds of a festive party from across main st, the drunken and perhaps joyous exclaimations of the track team celebrating the end of the season. I felt strange throughout the walk, unsure precisely of what was on my mind, and unsure why I was walking for so long in the dark. Still puzzled I returned to room, where roomate informed me that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
I've gone back and forth whether to write about this topic. Learning the news that bin Laden had been killed elicited many thoughts last night. Thoughts of that day almost a decade ago when I walked home from school to learn that the World Trade Center had been reduced to rubble echoed through the mind. I remembered those powerful nationalist feelings, and the fervor with which I dedicated myself to proclaiming the greatness of the United States. I remembered how the soldier became the premier role-model, and how supporting the nation's military became the unambigous duty of every citizen not a traitor to the values of America. I remember feeling such pride seeing the bombs fall on Kabul and Kandahar; Baghdad and Basra. There was a potent feeling in the air that justice was being done.
It is several years later now. I've seen the country I grew up loving do many great and terrible things. I have seen ruthless barbarity and humanitarian goodness from my people. I have seen kindness and I have seen savagery. I have seen military folks and civilians alike live their values in some cases, and shit on them in others. Through a decade of war, economic peril, natural disaster, and political realignment, many things have happened which compel me to question those views and feelings which blossomed in the mind in 2001. Studying history in college has similarly affected such thinking. So many feelings I have felt and notions I have entertained through this past decade share much with feelings and notions entertained by others in other place and at other times. You and I and everyone else in our time are so unique and so unique from those long generations who lived before us. Our world is so different and so similar. Our thoughts are so different and so similar. So many things have changed, yet so many things have not. It is all quite confusing for a student of history at times.
When I heard the news of bin Laden's death last night, I felt so many things; pity, indifference, pride, disgust, and other feelings I cannot yet identify. Following the news, chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!" broke out in several places across the country, including the campus of my college. On the facebook I found many statuses dedicated to the death of bin Laden. Letsrun.com already had a message board dedicated to the death of bin Laden, where people aired their feelings on the subject. Many spoke of justice. Some have said that killing bin Laden removed a great evil from the world, comparing him to Hitler for instance.
Yet I do not feel such feelings. As much as I have tried, the celebrations of people in the street and on the web have not moved me to join in jubilation. I feel almost sad that a death has conjured such joy among people. People who celebrated the deaths of American soldiers acted in this way. People who celebrate great acts of violence act in this way.
Will celebrating bin Laden's death bring back those people who were lost these past ten years? Will bin Laden's death bring back those brave soldiers who served their country gallantely across the globe yet never returned home alive? Will bin Laden's death give back all those things our fellow citizens lost on September 11th? I do not believe this is so.
Our loved ones will not return because we killed the one we hated. Perhaps it felt unfair that our loved ones were dead while their killer yet lived. Yet killing the killer has not brought them back. Our people's loss is the same today as it was yesterday, and the day before that. Bin Laden's death gives no one tangible compensation for the sorrows suffered by his hands.
I am troubled, kind readers, by what has happened. Perhaps it is wrong to feel as such, but I am troubled all the same. I do not see the victory that others seem to see. Are we truly living our values by celebrating the death of another?
Our people lost so much ten years ago. They have lost still more in the years since. How can we compensate them with a corpse, or a headline in bold and all-caps? I am troubled, kind readers. I am troubled.
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