A cheerful funeral

I’d just turned 15 when the World Trade Center fell. The newspaper told me that 3,000 people were dead, and while I knew this was a terrible thing, it took me a while to understand the world had fundamentally changed. An earthquake in India had killed 12,000 people earlier that year, and this hadn’t noticably altered the way anyone spoke or behaved or thought.

Of course, earthquakes are no-one’s fault, but the deaths in the Twin Towers turned out to be cold-blooded murder. It had never really occurred to me that someone might kill 3,000 people on purpose - that only happened in ancient history and James Bond movies. The realisation that the world was more complex than I understood came when I saw, on the news, people singing and dancing and waving flags on a street in Afghanistan.

“Why are they so happy?” I asked my dad.

“Because someone’s killed Americans,” he replied.

At the time it struck me how monstrous this celebration was, but I’d forgotten about it until last week, when the news was broadcasting footage of nearly identical street parties. The only difference was the chant (“USA! USA!”) and the reason - Osama bin Laden was dead.

An ethicist could hardly have asked for a better hypothetical. Is it permissable to celebrate the loss of human life? Most people would say no. But what if the dead man had kept five women imprisoned as his “wives”? Still no? What if he had spent two decades on a killing spree which had taken more than 3,300 lives?

I can understand all the rationalisations, and I don’t doubt that the world is better off without bin Laden. Perhaps if I lived in New York City, I’d be dancing and cheering too. But I can’t help but shiver as I watch the footage. Something tells me that what separates civilised people from al-Qaeda is that civilised people take no joy from anyone else’s suffering, regardless of the circumstance. The most it’s appropriate to feel upon the news of a villain’s death is quiet, private relief.

MITIFOTIT:
Most Interesting Thing I Found On The Internet Today

A whole blog post without a joke in it? That’s crazy talk. Here’s a borrowed one from The Perry Bible Fellowship: