Cheering for Killing and “Greatness” Defined by Violence

Photo (CC) by Chris Gordon retrieved from Flickr

When I went in search of a photo to accompany what I thought was a finished post, the above was one of the first I noticed–and I noticed it because of the disconnect on display, because of how bizarre it is to see someone raising a hand in a sign of peace while standing in a crowd that is gleefully celebrating a death–a death that is neither a promise of nor a result of peace; a death that follows a decade of ceaseless violence and that could so very well lead to even more violence and rage, not unrelated to these jubilant rather than solemn reactions to this event. And this moment  has not come easily or in a vacuum; it has been preceded by tens and hundreds of thousands of deaths and unquantifiable suffering caused by our actions. I don’t see “peace” and “victory” in this. And what has happened to bring us to this moment and what could happen next–that’s not how I define “acceptable loss” either.

Osama bin Laden was a violent, hateful, destructive man; he killed cruelly and coldly and caused immeasurable suffering. He is not someone any of us wanted to have roaming the world freely, doing more of what he does. And I think relief or, for many, a sense of justice or closure is understandable. But much of what we’ve seen since last night in reaction to the news of his death has been wrongheaded, and though my own thoughts are jumbled up, two particular commentaries that I saw this morning, from Salon and Colorlines, articulate what many others of us felt last night as we listened to President Obama’s sometimes strange words, as we watched friends and strangers celebrate and cheer violence and killing like they were in a sports arena.

Kai Wright, “The Ability to Kill Osama Bin Laden Does Not Make America Great,” Colorlines:

Osama Bin Laden, evil incarnate, has justified so, so much American violence in the 21st century. We have launched two wars and executed God knows how many covert military operations in the ethereal, never-ending fight he personifies. We have made racial profiling of Muslim Americans normative, turned an already broken immigration system into an arm of national defense, and reversed decades worth of hard-won civil liberties while pursuing him, dead or alive. We have abandoned even the conceit of respect for human rights in places stretching from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay in the course of hunting him down. Now, finally, the devil is dead….

The gap between rhetoric and reality has long been a defining trait of American life. Lies about our values have shielded us from the brutal facts of our nation ever since we built it on the back of genocide and slavery. But it is in times like these that the dissonance becomes unbearable.

Wright goes on to explore the realities that ran through my mind too when President Obama said last night that our killing Osama bin Laden (after a decade of U.S.-led violence that has included killing and injuring so very many innocents) is proof that the United States can accomplish whatever it wants as long as it tries hard enough. I found this to be an incredible statement. Wright poignantly explains why here.

Next up: David Sirota, “‘USA! USA!’ Is the Wrong Response,” Salon:

For decades, we have held in contempt those who actively celebrate death. When we’ve seen video footage of foreigners cheering terrorist attacks against America, we have ignored their insistence that they are celebrating merely because we have occupied their nations and killed their people. Instead, we have been rightly disgusted — not only because they are lauding the death of our innocents, but because, more fundamentally, they are celebrating death itself. That latter part had been anathema to a nation built on the presumption that life is an “unalienable right.”

But in the years since 9/11, we have begun vaguely mimicking those we say we despise…

Again, yes, Osama bin Laden was a violent, destructive, dangerous man who killed and caused suffering for countless people around the world. But as the writers behind the linked-to pieces argue more articulately than I can this morning, too much of the rhetoric and celebration in response to the killing of him is sad, disappointing, dangerous, nauseating, hypocritical.

What happened yesterday was neither the end nor the beginning of unspeakable violence. Let’s not celebrate as if it was.