Death saddens, while blatant nationalism frightens me



Dead - Osama bin Laden

The reported death last week of Osama bin Laden saddened me.
That moment, celebrated by many Americans, including President Barack Obama, simply revealed a nationalistic fervour that can erode and corrupt even the most decent of societies.
Many would argue that the demise of bin Laden was justified retribution for the nearly 3000 people killed in 2001 when New York’s World Trade Centres were destroyed, an event for which he was credited.
bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization claimed responsibility for many other deadly attacks and so some would see his killing as only a down payment on the growing debt brought upon himself by his deathly antics.
Accepting that he, or at least his organization, was responsible for what is known colloquially as 9/11, that desperate moment is not put right through the murder of the 54-year-old Saudi.
Many Americans, and an equal number of other people from around the world, undoubtedly see such a conclusion to a US operation in a mansion just outside Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, quite differently.
Reported on the ABC the day of bin Laden’s death, President Obama said: "Tonight is a testament to the greatness of our country... we are reminded that America can do whatever we set our minds to."
Such comments do little but add to the poison that is nationalism and excite the less than expansive minds of those simply want to bomb into oblivion countries that don’t want to accept the “gift” of Americanism.
The world is s knotty place and within that complexity is an endless array of phobias, seemingly pointless obsessions and considered insanities that ensure every action has many unintended consequences.
That being said, many drink to bin Laden’s demise, while an equal number, who see his demise through a different prism, consider how best they can revenge his death and so the outcome of last week’s raid was not a solution, rather just the opening gambit in those unintended consequences.
Those who went before us have not had the emotional capacity to see beyond the immediate and so reacted with disingenuous behaviour and so despite the loud and repeated pleas for peace, the world ended up simply ricocheting from one violent encounter to another.
It is time humanity took a deep, deep breath, stood back and acknowledged that few of our number understand what peace means, how it is achieved, how we live with it, where it begins, what role each of us has and the brute stupidity of killing another in the name of values important to us, is just that, less than intelligent.
The challenge for each is immense; we need excavate our stoicism rather than nationalism and apply the Christian doctrine of turn the other cheek.