Monday, May 2, 2011

I might get bombed for this...

I realized, last night, that I was not having the "right" reaction. I heard my hunny telling me Osama was dead. I hear the president repeatedly use the first person in what seems to me the most ego-centric, most UN-presidential moment he has had. I saw the pictures of the house, and I'm sure I'll see pictures of a body, though I'd rather not.

And all I could think was: WHY am I being asked to rejoice in slaughter, when slaughter is what has brought our hell upon us?

So, feel free to blog-bomb me, but here it is:

We have ritually slaughtered the symbol of terrorism.

But just as the shamans before us knew, it is not the ritual slaughter that heals. It is the work that the mind does in thinking it has been healed--and often, it is time. Allowing the body to root out the illness. And just as often, slaughter, work, and time fail, and the body succumbs.

What am I saying? First and foremost, that incarnate evil as he may have been, I refuse to partake in the celebration of the ritual slaughter of Osama bin Laden. If he WERE the whole cancer of terrorism, I might feel differently, though I'm not really sure of that. But he isn't. He was a symbol, and a dead symbol long before his death.

Second, that any American who thinks this is a victory over terrorism is likely also the kind of person who thinks taking one's shoes off in an airport somehow adds security. It doesn't, and this isn't.

Third, that the killing of Osama bin Laden is little more than a ritual slaughter. The intent when showing the "compound", when showing the body, as our journalists insist we must so the Arabs will "get it," is little more than gloating. That "little more" is a power-play.

And I am not so naive as to believe that governments partake in anything other than power-plays. I simply wish I could look around me and see others who understand that today is no safer a day than yesterday was; that this slaughter is no more than a ritual killing; that the scape-goat does not cleanse the community; and that the only offense against terrorism is to live like we did before they brought it to our shores: in LIBERTY, personal and national.

We must make headway in terms of liberty, not backtrack as we have been, if we have any hope of coming out of this a thriving, growing nation.

I somehow doubt that will happen--and the more I watch facebook stati and tweets galore with joyous pronouncements the less I believe it can.

8 comments:

  1. How about if I blog-hug you rather than leave a blog-bomb? I adore that you are throwing what you feel into words, rather than what people think you should feel.
    Good for you, and thank you for sharing.

    Blessings,
    Denise

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  2. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. No one knows what will happen next, whether the world will be a safer place. I understand where you are coming from, but I can't help thinking that, once dead, he can't organise any further bombing...which can't be that bad...

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  3. MuMuGB,

    I can see where you're coming from, but two questions arise from that; first, does the fact that he is believed to have lost power in the organization he started and was no longer doing much by way of planning (and so the much being done was and is being done by others) mean that we shouldn't have killed him?

    And Second, if we were watching him for weeks, which the president insists he was, couldn't we have captured him and brought him to trial? Putting him away would have kept him from the same--though I'm certain our country would have killed him even with a trial.

    The questions are the same whether a person kills one or thousands. Doesn't that make those who kill the killers just more killers?

    I've yet to settle this in my own mind--I just don't want us to forget that we're not in the clear here. And that continuing to *think* is the key.

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  4. Agree Leah. None of this killing, any of it, makes me feel we are closer to lasting peace.

    Thanks for your honesty,
    Claire

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  5. I tend to agree with you Leah. The only good I can see coming out of this is that hopefully it will bring some closure for those who lost loved ones on that terrible day.

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  6. It was so nice to fly Air China where they don't confiscate your water bottle and ask you to please NOT remove your shoes. From a communist country no less.

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  7. I'm glad to know that I am alone - I have been having similar thoughts!

    I have had a hard time reading FB statuses and such since the "announcement" - I live in a very conservative mid-western state so I'm an anomaly.

    Good Post.

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  8. Thank you for your honesty. Tonight, I'm sending a prayer to all the souls who have lost their lives as a a result of 9/11 both in the US and abroad - especially in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan - and all of the loved ones they left behind. I hope their broken hearts are slowly healing.

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