Celebrating Death

If anyone understands the momentousness of life, it is someone who has had a life stripped away from them too soon. I read an editorial this morning written by the sister of a man who was a victim of Bin Laden's September 11th attack. The man's widow told her today that she sees nothing to celebrate about September 11th, 2001, not then, not now. I can't imagine how this woman felt on September 11th but I empathize well with how she feels now.

I never thought that as someone who intentionally looks for "Pro Choice" and "Pro Death Penalty" candidates when choosing who to vote for, that I'd be so thrown off by yesterday's jubilation at the news of Osama Bin Laden's death. It seems to be the realm of the Pro-Life/Anti-Death Penalty Christian crowd to not wave flags or sing joyously at someone's extermination, not mine.

But people aren't so predictable when it comes time to act out their true character. It was the Roman Catholic Church that stepped up as the sole organization to condemn celebrations (rarely the non-hypocrite right?), not Amnesty International or the ACLU or even James Dobson's fervently Pro-life 'Christian' Coalition. Other groups and individuals that always claim to honor life didn't step up to the plate to actually.... honor life. Instead they triumphed outwardly.....in an assassination. Somehow it didn't click with them that there was an 'assassination' on September 11th, 2001 as well and just like yesterday, people worldwide celebrated in the streets. We've come full circle.

Does it matter who dies? That's the defense people gave for why they were waving flags, shouting curse words of joyous revenge, or sending rhymy celebratory posts to each other on Facebook. When what they construe to be a scummy person dies, not only is it o.k., but it's an excuse for a beer and a parade. I wonder where that gets tangly.

I remember the sick glob in the pit of my stomach watching people in 'enemy' countries celebrate Bin Laden's attack on us a decade ago. But I rationalized it to myself. Hey, these people are brainwashed. The women aren't allowed educations or jobs. They live in third world countries. They are taught from birth how horrible the west is. Heck, the west has done some crappy stuff to them so it's understandable. Even so, I found them low. I found them ignorant. I found them beastly and unevolved. I never imagined those same videos would ever be made in America.

Osama Bin Laden was killed last Sunday and that video was made in America. Well, wasn't that a simple way to take my naive self-righteous American egomania and shove it where the sun don't shine. We're no better. Any group of people that actively celebrate a death (that's actually multiple deaths).... are at the same level.

I wrote my feelings in a Facebook broadcast and people who I haven't talked to in weeks, people that never respond to my posts, came in to rebut to my feelings. They don't feel strongly about the other things I've written about (life, children, racism, politics, education, history)...but they are quite strong in their belief that being 'stoked' and 'joyful' about some guy getting shot in the eye is an appropriate human response. Human?

My five year old daughter saw a picture on a newspaper today and asked me about it. The picture showed a man holding up an American flag, surrounded by a joyously celebrating crowd. Lucky for me and unlucky for my children, they are still of the ages where us parents can steer a conversation any which way we want to! And the way I wanted to steer it was this.... A simple summary of 9/11 and Obama Bin Laden's orchestration of it and then this question: What makes a human being different from an animal? That's simple enough even for a preschooler. We're higher order beings for many reasons including these: We're empathetic, we use our brains to solve high level problems, and most importantly (here I'm steering): We have the ability to consciously go against our aninal instincts for our personal good or for the greater good. Animal instincts tell us to use violence to solve problems. Animal instincts tell us to scream and pound walls instead of using dialogue to solve a conflict. And animal instincts tell us to grab beers, shout profanities, and party loudly at Ground Zero because another human being was killed.