Celebrating the death of a man who declared war on the west ,does make the west any better than him ,and that is a fact,was this justice done or revenge taken ?

Text: Angad Kapur 12th Grade
The Cathedral and John Connon School

It’s been a short while now since that faithful day when the world woke up to President Obama declaring Osama Bin Laden dead. There were two observations that one could make on that day. The first of them was that with Operation Gerenimo’s success, Obama is almost certainly guaranteed a second term as President of the United States of America.

The second and more important one is the almost barbaric delight with which Americans celebrated this news. Agreed that Bin Laden was responsible for the death of many a thousand people and even I could not prevent myself from smiling a little bit upon hearing the news. After all, it was an end of a dreadful era. Thousands had died at the hands of this man and it is almost natural to want to be “happy “about his death.

Yet, when I saw the scenes that were telecast on news channels, of Americans gathering and celebrating, something didn’t quite seem right. That line with which we separated “us” (the civilised world) from “them” ( the terrorists) seemed to have blurred. No civilised human beings celebrate the death of another human being with that much gusto no matter how evil that person was. Personally, I thought such a closure would be symbolised by mourning the death of all the innocent men, women and children Bin laden had killed. Some sort of a peace march would be suitable . Apart from deep insult to the concept of human dignity that these celebrating men and women had meted out, something else came to mind.

Was this justice done or revenge taken?

Celebrating the death of a man who declared war on the West, does not make the West any better than him and that is a fact. The cycle of hatred has to come to an end. If the so called “civilised people” of the world cannot end it, then it is ridiculously naive for us to believe that the men and women at the other end of the spectrum (referring to terrorists of course) will end it. The image of Americans waltzing around in Captain America suits has done nothing but further rub salt on the wounds of Al Qaeda who are probably already planning a terror attack to avenge the death of their “messiah”. It is common practice for History teachers to tell their students that one man’s terrorist is another man’s hero. The most appropriate example to exemplify this statement is that of Bhagat Singh. A national hero for India, he was seen as a terrorist by Britain at his time. Do not get me wrong I am in no way comparing an Indian national hero to the monster that was Osama Bin Laden. But he is a hero for many around the globe. These are the “many” that we need to bring on our side. The point I am trying to drive home is that although it is great that Bin Laden is dead, he will soon be replaced by another Bin Laden. And if that Bin Laden is killed, he will be replaced by yet another Bin laden. You get the drift? We are not fighting one man, but an ideology that the “West is bad”. Killing the leaders propagating this ideology may stem it for a while but will not stop it’s ill effects. Reconciliation can only be achieved if the followers of this ideology start to understand that the senseless bulls**t that their leaders are preaching is actually senseless bulls**t.

And if the West decides to have a street party every time one of these leaders is killed, the cycle of hate will never end.