Celebration

This is to be published as an editorial for this Tuesday's Scroll, the student newspaper of BYU-Idaho.

How many people have died inside your home? How many people have been killed inside your apartment? How many people have you killed with the colored buttons of a video game controller and justified it because they were in the confines of a flat-screen boob tube? “Those of you who spend time playing video games where you kill other people ought to reflect on that scripture,” stated President Clark in a recent Devotional.  Thou shalt not kill. Reflect on the phrase “and nothing like unto it.”

Osama Bin Laden was reported dead on the evening of May 1. US Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden in a house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, 40 miles outside the capital city of Islamabad in a gutsy overnight maneuver. They confirmed his identity with a DNA test and then buried him at sea. 

Video game killings and the death of a terrorist are two topics not so far separated and they both seem to be celebrated by the public.

The news of his death spread nearly instantly across the globe. Many students here at BYU-Idaho received the news through text messages and online media sources.  Some received the news with “hoo-rah’s” of jubilation and others received it with the due respect for the dead.

It seemed that the overwhelming majority of the audible public received this news with rejoicing, showing themselves to be apathetically detached from the reality of the situation: the death of another human being; the death of a brother.

Frat boys across the nation celebrated their patriotism and victory of their country with drunkenness, dancing, ridding themselves of superfluous baggage,  and then followed it up with more drunkenness. They sang “Na-na-na-na, Hey, hey, hey, good-bye” in not-so-somber mourning of his death, providing, as some say, a sense of closure for those who were terrified little children when the airplanes hit and the towers fell back in 2001.

On the other hand, in Afghanistan, locals expressed their displeasure with the treatment of Bin Laden and the way he was killed, asserting that he should have been captured and taken alive, and that his death will now provoke more of his Muslim brothers to fight.

Yes, he was one of the master-minds of the infamous 9/11 attack that killed over 3,000 people, yes, he has fled from our armed forces for nearly ten years, yes, he is responsible for the death and terror of countless other victims. But yes, he is human, and, no, we should not rejoice in his death.

The death of Osama Bin Laden should instead be seen as a great symbolic victory for the United States, not celebrated with chanting and dancing in the streets, nor with snickering remarks in school hallways. To outwardly celebrate the death of an individual, even one that is labeled “bad” by society is to dehumanize him.  To kill a man who is responsible for the death and harassment of countless others is justified and legal, yet still it is a sad and unfortunate event, as it is the death of a child of God.

 “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Matthew 5:24.

We should deal with and accept reality as it is. To laugh over some things and to find humor in mistakes is appropriate but find glee in the death or loss of another inappropriate.

 “I'm disturbed by the idea of celebrating a death. It's just smacks a little too much of the lynch mob there, you know?” as Clarence Page, who advocated celebrating justice not death said on NPR, Thursday.

Death is death. Killing is killing. It doesn’t matter if it’s behind your TV screen or across the world in a different country, just or unjust, it is not something to glorify in. Let us see the death of Osama Bin Laden as the just and necessary consequence to his unfortunate choice of action to attack the United States of America.