STOCKI SURMISES THE DEATH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

 

The death of Osama Bin Laden is without doubt the historic event of the decade so far, out-stripping all the pomp and loveliness of a British Royal Wedding. Bin Laden has been a symbol of evil since those heinous events of  9/11 made him a house hold name; most western households frightened by every mention. As a result, reactions have been swift and guttural. They have also been in places disturbing. The fist pumping chants of “U.S.A. U.S.A.” like America had won a ballgame or the woman who likened the celebration to the aforementioned Royal Wedding have made many of us stop and look deep into our confusion and mixed emotions of how to respond.

When I look deep within myself I have heard all kinds of reactions from a sense of satisfaction to relief to finally a deeper disturbance. I lived 30 years of my life in the midst of terrorism, here in Northern Ireland, and it is not pleasant. The taking out of Bin Ladin maybe made my wife and daughter’s lives safer, at least if I follow the sound bites of the media that have almost jammed all the evil in our world into one iconic face. As the day progressed, and perhaps because of some of the saber rattling and smug joy, I became a whole lot more reflective. I ended up asking about Bin Ladin’s wife and children? That toy, as the camera panned the compound he was murdered in? Is one of my favourite songwriters, Bruce Cockburn, right when he sings, “Everybody loves to see justice done...On somebody else.” 

It seems that whatever has happened in these past few days that it is not a human happening to rejoice in. It is not in God’s original design that a human being should be so damaged by the Fall that he would plot the violence that Bin Ladin plotted or that he would die such a violent death. This is not how it should be, so let us be solemn in that realization. I also find it very difficult to deal with this event just a week after Easter when I found a justice that wasn’t about revenge or hatred but about forgiveness and love. When we deserved justice, the one who was just became the one who justified. These are all uneasy thoughts. It is this kind of disturbance that Osama Bin Laden’s death should cause. The world should not be this way and we shouldn’t celebrate that it is. Bin Laden’s life and death reminds us that we need an alternative Kingdom. My holiday is over, so I am back to work on that very Kingdom today!

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