Why We Shouldn't Celebrate Bin Laden's Death

The mastermind of 9/11, Osama bin Laden, a man who has personified evil for millions, is dead. History will note this day. The course of history, however, will not change. The progression of the human race shouldn’t change, either. Yes, he killed 2300 people. Yes, he killed untold hundreds before that. Yes, he funded terrorist causes around the globe. NO, we shouldn’t celebrate his death. No one’s death is a cause for celebration. This may seem irrational and even heartless, but when we kill someone we revert to a barbarism that is distant and even injurious to our higher nature. In short, we lessen ourselves, regress as a society, and suffocate our souls.

I was a staunch believer in the death penalty until a few months ago. One powerful little movie changed all of that: Dead Man Walking. The movie portrays a man who is indeed guilty of the crime, but highlights (very subtly, such that its true meaning is open to interpretation) the immorality and horror of vengeance. Maybe the death of my brother softened my stance on death, but there’s no denying that once a powerful idea takes root, nothing can stop it. I will never applaud a death again. Ghandi’s famous words, “An eye for an eye will make the world blind,” is as true now as its ever been. If all we take from it is nothing more than a cute bumper sticker, we are missing out on something wholly profound.

Bin Laden wasn’t a good man, but I will not celebrate his death. As much God flows in me as flowed in him. He, like Hitler and so many countless men of evil before him, lost his way somewhere along the path. There’s no justification for his actions, but there’s no justification for his death either.

What, then, should we have done with him? I don’t pretend to be a political scientist, but maybe Guantanamo Bay or some secret prison somewhere on the fringes of the world would’ve made a good home for him. And let’s not forget, that even before prison, he deserved his day in the Hague. Have we forgotten the values which we so proudly stand for?

There’s a powerful line from the Tao te Ching that says, “When you win a war, you celebrate by mourning.” I won’t go so far as to mourn Bin Laden’s death, but the relevance of the message applies to his death. We should mourn that what was at one point undoubtedly a beautiful soul somehow lost its way. Rather than shout and frolic shamelessly in the streets, we should hold silent vigil for the 2300 men and women who died on that fateful day, and for the spiritual perdition of a man.