I must confess to feeling somewhat shaken over the news of Bin Laden’s death. My reaction–a kind of deep and trembly somberness–makes me realize, first, what a both intense and nervous pacifist I am. The death of even an enemy at another’s hands is not the kind of thing that brings me jubilance.
On the other hand, I’m a downtown New Yorker. I saw the second plane hit the Trade Towers, and, for months and years, have mourned the 9/11 attacks, not so much because of the immediate loss of a loved one, but because of the loss of–I don’t know what exactly–an old life in a different New York City? A time pre-ongoing wars? (Of course, there were the loved ones. No New Yorker can forget the photos and pleas that coated every lamppost and street corner, the terrible sorrow that filled all of our lives for some long time.)
There are also the countless deaths overseas, people killed because of the conflicts arising (rightly or wrongly) out of 9/11. Can the deaths of Iraqi civilians be blamed on Bin Laden? I don’t know (I have some doubts, certainly, about the handling of it all). Still, there is a sense that it is all knotted somehow together; collateral damage to the nth degree; violence that brought on more violence, and was intended to do so.
Being a downtown New Yorker post 9/11 also brings with it easily re-awakened fear. I woke up this morning to the sound of helicopters. The blades raise a resonate shuddering in the stomach.
Yes, I am glad that the U.S. has been able to accomplish what it intended, that it’s been able to feel and show that competence.
I also hope that this can be the justification for U.S. extrication of itself from foreign wars, and that Bin Laden’s death provides some kind of comfort, at least some lessening of bitterness, for families who have lost loved ones.
I just wish there were ways other than killing for all sides (ourselves and our opponents) to move towards an idea of justice. Maybe I was born on the wrong planet.
(P.S. whatever one’s feelings, however happy one may feel that Bin Laden has died, it seems too serious a matter for jumping up and down. It brings back images of people celebrating 9/11; it’s hard to believe that that kind of pay-back can do anything but promote more violence.)
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