Below, find some thoughts and some rants on the recently announced death of Osama bin Laden. This was originally written as a private journal entry, but I decided it'd been a while since I posted anything on this blog, so I figured I'd share.
My earliest recollection of "terrorism" is from 2000; I was 14 years old. The USS Cole was bombed in Yemen. I think this was the first time I'd heard the name "Osama bin Laden." Having been only six years old when the World Trade Center was bombed (1993), that was in the back of my head, but not really something I remembered experiencing. It was Mrs. Diaz's Honors World Cultures class (ninth grade "current events" assignment / discussion) where I first learned about terrorism and extremism. I think teaching it any earlier than that would have been rather futile anyway. Prior to 2000, my knowledge of terrorism was that is was bad and performed by bad people. We didn't learn about economic strife or sanctions or oil or religion or any of that stuff. We didn't learn politics.
I've grown up with this man being the center of the "criminal" world. I was 15 years old when the towers went down. I knew the act was wrong and hateful and I was hoping to see my fellow countrymen take the higher road. I was disappointed. I didn't like the anti-Muslim sentiments or the chest thumping. (Even in the wake of this man's death, I still don't believe chest thumping is appropriate.) I didn't want war, but if we had to go to war, I would have preferred it being legal and organized. I would have preferred a war where we knew the enemy or, at least, understood his gripes and had soldiers and intelligence personnel who actually spoke his language. I didn't see the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq (in the ways we went about them, at least) as legitimate answers anymore than I thought the act itself was legitimate.
Since I was young and impressionable when the towers were hit, the devastation and reactions completely shaped my views. For as long as I have been capable of independent thought, I have known that this man was an enemy (an enemy of what or whom, I wasn't sure, but enemy nonetheless). We all had to learn. Americans have had A LOT to learn and we have learned since 2000 / 2001, but we shouldn't think we're done yet. We were shocked - a lot of us legitimately - when the towers came down. I was among them, but I was only 15 after all. Some adult out there was supposed to be keener than I.
Had the towers not been hit, I find it unlikely that I would have pursued a political science degree. The act woke some of us up. We knew "they" didn't like us much, but we never imaged that "they" hated us so violently and learning this made me want to understand why. I wanted to know what reasons they had that were potentially extreme and what reasons were potentially legitimate and I found more of the latter than I'd expected. There are no black-and-whites. There are no total right-and-wrongs. The globe itself is a blur. America has made mistakes and has screwed people over in other countries for her own benefit and sometimes to the direct detriment of the people of those other countries. With little remorse. Often, with little or no admission. Not that we haven't done ANY good, but they get to dislike us for that. We have participated in some - arguably - terrorist activities (only we do it by arming the terrorists we want to win and making sure they DO win and then we call in a "military coup" in the country without recognizing the serial numbers on the guns). We like to pick and choose our terrorists. This is not to say that the "terrorists" we recognize are anything less than terrorists. This is to say that they have some points and in some ways we have brought this on ourselves. We have been arrogant and we have been quick-to-act. We have done harm for which we should, reasonably, expect some form of backlash.
However, there are plenty of things that these people stand for that are wrong no matter what America has done. Women should not be covered from head to foot while living in a desert if they do not choose nor should they be executed for being "impure" victims of rape. Additionally, murder in the name of any cause or religion is thoroughly unacceptable. I am pro-choice and I am even pro-assisted suicide, but I am not for senseless murder of living, independently-breathing human beings who WANT to live. Human beings are such minuscule and, frankly, unnecessary blips in the cosmos; we really don't need to be offing ourselves. If the only way for you to express yourself and your opinions is through causing physical harm to someone else, it is not a legitimate form of expression. We hurt each other enough with the shit we spew into the air. We don't need to do it with bombs and bullets.
So, I'm really not trying to get put on any terrorist watch list for believing that some of their concerns are legitimate. It's just not as simple as "there's the bad guy, go get him." Terrorists may always be bad, but they may not always be wrong. This is an important distinction from which too many Americans have been blinded. Now, I fear that too many people will take this as a literal victory, will think that little more needs to be done. I fear that people will gloss over all the things we've since learned about why "they hate us" as if, without him, they won't hate us anymore.
In any event, I think America grew up as a direct result of this man's existence. We learned we CAN be hit on our home turf and it doesn't even take much. Some of us even went out and tried to learn about our enemies. These are healthy reactions to a tragic event. There will be a new al Qaeda leader and, likely, more attacks (though hopefully none to the magnitude of September 11, 2011). Killing one man is only a symbolic victory, but I do think it is an important one. His death does mark the end of an era and provides a certain amount of closure for those of us who were alive and cognizant when the towers fell. We can feel like someone was held accountable for the tragedy. We may even be able to feel a little safer knowing that the mind that thought up such awful things can no longer scheme against us, though there may be a mind of equal evil lurking just behind. I don't, however, view his death as "justice" especially since his followers will only describe him as a martyr from this point on. I don't find solace is his death. I would have preferred his capture and trial as opposed to his death; I think we could have learned more that way, but it might have been the only choice we had.
What NEEDS to happen, globally, is serious reorganization and recognition. A lot of first-world countries are doing harm: both to less advanced countries, but also to the planet. Just because we have money (maybe) and can operate covertly, does not make it any less tragic. Everything is run by greed. There is no such thing as "enough." Companies make money and money is in the interest of government, so the two are going to let the world implode if citizens of the world are not vigilant. Money is important to people too, but I think a fair amount of people can recognize when they have enough and don't feel the need to plunder for more once they have found financial security. (If this is not the case, then we really are doomed.) Companies don't seem to have that meter. This isn't a joke. This isn't make believe. Our environment is going to hell. Companies are in business to make money and it doesn't matter to them what ends up in the air or in the water or whose 12 year old daughter is working in some factory for $0.03 an hour, but it matters to the people in those countries and it matters to the birds and the fish that inhabit its skies and its seas. This is why they hate us. I don't even think it is a direct hatred of America or Americans, but of what we symbolize. There are other countries with similar power who do similarly bad things, but we're the ones who brag about it. They hate us for being so arrogant and for being so greedy. But the planet doesn't need us. Our universe, the cosmos beyond don't need us. Everything survived for billions on years without us and will thrive again should we bring about our own demise. We're a tumor on our world, but WE get to choose whether to be benign or malignant. The only ones who can save us are, quite literally, ourselves.
If the world needs an enemy, it should not be some Arab man wearing a turban. The enemy should be pollutants and any company or government that is complacent. The enemy should be anyone who can find rationalizations for child labor and unsafe / unfair working conditions. The enemy should be anyone who would like to squelch education. Education, I think, is the key to everything and needs to be available to everyone. The higher one's education, the less likely one is to fall into extremism or to follow blindly any faith or leader. Plus, we just desperately need smart people. We need smart people to find us energy alternatives. We need smart people to innovate.
The cause can't just be to "end" terrorism because we can't end terrorism without curing the decease of which terrorism is a mere symptom. We need better global business policies, fair labor laws and practices, and greater value on and accessibility to education. The world doesn't hate us for our "freedom." It hates us because we pick and choose who gets freedom and we base that on who can benefit us the most. Greed needs to be laying in a pool of blood with a bullet over its left eye. Greed interferes with peaceful enterprise and interaction. Greed is public enemy number one.
Recently viewed:
The Corporation (2004)
written by: Mark Achbar, Harold Crooks, Joel Bakan, and Thomas Shandel
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980)
written by: Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter
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[Je suis un dork extraordinaire.]
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