House Arrest

Celebrating Death May 3, 2011

Like many of my more peaceable friends, I have been wrestling with the news. On the one hand, I recognize an elation that a mass murderer, Osama Bin Laden, is no longer a threat to anyone, and that his demise was carried out thoughtfully and professionally, without injury to American or Pakistani civilians. On the other hand, I watched with dismay the jubilant celebrations of his death.

Then this morning, I came across this extract, serendipitously, from Robertson Davies’ novel, “The Manticore”:

“I had seen a hanging. Worse things happen in wars and in great catastrophes, but they are not directly planned and ordered. This had been the will of Jimmy’s fellow-countrymen, as expressed through the legal machinery devised to deal with such people as he. But it was unquestionably a squalid business, an evil deed, and we had all of us, from the hangman down to the reporters, been drawn into it and fouled by it. If Jimmy had to be got rid of – and I fully believe that was all that could have been done with such a man, unless he were to be kept as a caged, expensive nuisance for another fifty years – why did it have to be like this? ….

Jimmy’s evil had infected us all – had indeed spread far beyond his prison until something of it touched everybody in his country. The law had been tainted by evil, though its great import was for good, or at least for order and just dealing. But it would be absurd to attribute so much power to Jimmy, who was no more than a fool whose folly had become the conduit by which evil had poured into so many lives. When I visited Jimmy in prison I had sometimes seen on his face a look I knew …. It was the look of one who has laid himself open to a force that is inimical to man, and whose power to loose that force upon the world is limited only by his imagination, his opportunities, and his daring.”

I have a psychological need to believe that my government tried to take Osama Bin Laden alive (for the record, I don’t doubt it). I do not support the death penalty for anyone. Aside from the practical considerations of preventing the death of an innocent, the death penalty presumes that one human can judge when another’s life is irredeemable, and I don’t believe this is possible. Also, a society with a death penalty grows callous and careless. And it is this very callousness displayed at American monuments around the country yesterday that was alarming.

Many years ago, I watched a farmer find a sick and unresponsive chicken in his pen. The chicken offered no further utility on the farm – it would not lay eggs and it was not safe to eat – so the farm would not waste feed or tears on it. He picked up the hen by its feet so it dangled upside down, crushed its head to the ground with his boot, and yanked on the legs to dislocate the neck. For about twenty seconds, the wings flapped a few hard beats which lost their vigor and then ceased, like a engine that won’t start on a cold morning. The whole process held a horrid fascination to someone who had never seen death before, but I can’t say it was anything but ugly. The farmer was neither squeamish about the job, nor did he make light of it. Killing it was a chore that needed to be done, and he set about it with dispatch and perhaps a mild distaste, but I’m sure his mind was already thinking about the next chore as he carried the carcass to the rubbish heap.

I believe my peacenik friends and I would prefer that the United States could have removed Osama Bin Laden with the same dispassionate necessity and utility, and moved on without glorification of his death. The images of the chanting crowds at the White House and the World Trade Center don’t seem terribly different in mood and intent than the throngs at the American Embassy in Teheran in the 1980s. My pacifist friends are upset, dismayed, and frightened to know that we live among vindictive-minded neighbors in our own country, but I hardly think they are surprised.

And yet I have no trouble sharing a country where some of its citizens glorify the unavoidable killing of a criminal who resisted arrest. Not that I personally will glorify his death. It is hardly in my nature, and I felt no personal emnity towards him. But I recognize that for other Americans, it was personal. Very personal.

To many people, America stands as the best expression and realization of their values – freedom, human rights, dignity, and constructive power to make the world a better place. To hear someone disparage our country is as maddening to them as to hear them disparage one’s religion or ancestry. And to have someone mastermind an attack on our country that kills thousands is very, very personal. Especially if you, or someone you love, has sacrificed life, limb, or years to protect this country. I could not fault such a person for wanting to celebrate this news. Had I been alive in 1945 when news came of Hitler’s suicide, even though it was clear he had already lost the war and the death camps were liberating, I might have been in the streets cheering his death.

We all are susceptible to the bleak fog of depression. The world is not as we wish it would be. For me, that means wars and CAFOs and cutting funding for social services. For some of my neighbors, it means 9-11, flag-burning, and a government that spends billions on homeland security with nothing to show for it except intrusive searches at the airport. The death of Osama Bin laden has lifted their oppression momentarily, and given them some hope. It has changed the despised narrative of America as an ogrish Goliath, full of hubris, unable to fend off a pimply David with his sling and stones. Instead, for one day at least, we are the bear who has successfully protected its cubs from the jackals.

I don’t ascribe to either of these narratives, nor am I inclined to sing and dance in the street right now. But I’m not frightened by those who do. If they seem to celebrate death and vengeance, I recognize that they are also celebrating justice, empowerment, relief, and a renewed sense of safety. For them, the world just got a whole lot sunnier for reasons that have far less to do with whether Osama is dead or alive and a lot more to do with the success of an American operation. Just as Republicans are grudgingly giving Obama credit for a risky and daring coup, we pacifists might consider joining the rest of the nation in a thankful prayer that the world is a safer place.