Everything’s changed. Most pertinently the gap year is formally over and Hannah and Stew have left to Kenya, and though there are lots of things that should probably be written down right about now- individual plans, what God’s been doing, the purpose of this blog from now on, what’s still being learnt and a bit of a rant about the royal wedding- I unfortunately feel the need to vocalise (even if it is cyber) some feelings towards the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death.
I suppose the main thing I was interested in (as I so often am) was people’s reactions, though I’m slightly shocked that I’m shocked by them. The facebook statuses alone are enough to make anyone cynical about our so called civilised age: the euphoric, jingoistic nature from a few American friends and the downright ignorance and bellicose slur from those closer to home interspersed with a few bestial, Sikipedia style jokes I thought we’d all grown out of. Someone died today. A child of God was murdered.
Now, I don’t claim to be an expert on the politics, on al-Qaeda, on the details of his death, the argument of necessity or the speculations on what this might now cause (though I can say with certainty that terrorism has not been beaten today as it seems some of those rejoicing in Bin Laden’s death believe) so I will not assume any authority in talking about the politics and won’t even bother putting down my half-formed opinion, and y’know, fair play to anyone simply breathing a sigh of relief but what I will say is that some (not all, I do realise) responses do not represent a society that is correct in its pride in being civilised, being ‘morally superior’. Was this justice? An eye for an eye? Applauding ourselves because we murdered the murderer and delighted in it and that's okay because he's 'evil', is less than human, is the figurehead of everything wrong with the world? We took to the streets to celebrate what exactly? Not the end of a war on terror, so simply national pride in- after excruciating amounts of time, money, violence- there being one more death? A death by innocent hands?
And now I find myself praying that members of al-Qaeda don’t respond in exactly the way we did and seek revenge, seems odd.
Of course, I do not dispute that Bin Laden is responsible for many deaths and the exploitation of religion for the purposes of hatred and I’ll pray for families of victims of terrorist attacks but I’ll also pray for the persecutors because like I say, I’m a kid that doesn’t know much about any of it, but I do know a small bit about love, about what Jesus taught and that He was speaking the truth, I know that fighting hate with hate doesn’t achieve much more than bloodshed.
I’ll end, I’m winding myself up. It just all seems ludicrous from where I’m standing, there’s no moral high-ground and no love. I’ll leave you with what, in my opinion, have been more appropriate reactions I’ve seen and heard in conversation:
Martin Luther King Jr -
A frustrated American- “Every inbred yokel from 50 miles is breaking out their rusty toolboxes full of fireworks labelled ‘Usama’- Only took a trillion dollars, nearly a million dead citizens, almost 10000 of our own military. It’s like if we went after the ex-president of Tesco, and after killing him celebrated the end of Walmart.”
Some lefty American- “This is bin Laden’s lamentable victory: He has changed America’s psyche from one that saw violence as a regrettable-if-sometimes-necessary act into one that finds orgasmic euphoria in news of bloodshed. In other words, he’s helped drag us down into his sick nihilism by making us like too many other bellicose societies in history -- the ones that aggressively cheer on killing, as long as it is the Bad Guy that is being killed.”
Sophie-“I don't care, I just wish everyone on facebook would shut up about it.”
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