I must admit that I felt quite uncomfortable with those remarks and the general happiness and excitement that people were expressing about this man's death.
Yes, I know, he did many many terrible things against humanity. Terrible, awful things that caused pain and loss for many people. There is no excuse or "right" reason for any of those things.
I wondered why I feel so uncomfortable with celebrating his murder.
I would like to consider myself to be an activist for peace. That means I believe in the world without oppression and violence. I believe that for everyone, not just for innocent or "good" people.
This exact issue was brought up to me at one of the presentations I was at a few years ago. The presentation was about death penalty and how it relates to doing a DV work. We were asked one important question there: "Can we support death penalty when we're working against violence?" How is it that we OK (or even encourage) use of violence to "punish" those who have committed an act of violence? Are we saying no to violence against certain groups of folks, but not others (their abusive partners in this case)? What does it really mean to work for non-violence? Do we hold different values personally and professionally?
Post 9/11, the overall message was not to grieve the loss or reflect on the relations we have within ourselves or with others. I heard a lot of "good vs. evil" talk, increased suspicion towards people who are or seem to be Muslim, and the world won't be a safe place until these evil-doers are dead. It is a real-life version of the movie "America: the World Police"
I don't know anyone who was directly affected by the terrorist attack on 9/11. I can't say how I would feel about it if I had lost someone then. However, I wanted to take a moment to think about it and hope it would give you a food for thought.
I found a column that addresses this phenomena pretty accurately in my opinion. Check it out!! http://www.salon.com/news/
I totally agree, Yuko. It bothered me last night when I saw one of my Facebook friends who is in the military post something along the lines of "drag him through the streets!"
ReplyDeleteI don't by any means agree with that line of thinking. Of course we can agree that he was a terrible person who incited much pain and suffering, but as the author of that Salon article said, we need to stop short of outright praising his death.
Honestly the reason why it bothers me so much is because it makes me nervous for my best friend, Neda. She isn't even Muslim, but she is from Iran and there are a bunch of ignorant people in her small town who could taunt her or worse, hurt her because of (or at least spurred on by) their xenophobic hysteria right now.
I relate it to what happened with Gabrielle Giffords. Hate speech isn't always benign. Sometimes it actually causes folks to go out and act on their hateful feelings.
Great post, Yuko. I share your sentiments and concern. I appreciate your open-ended questions around the use - and prevention - of violence. What does it really mean to live free from violence and how do we nurture peace actively, deeply and universally? I'm not sure I know. Thank you for your thoughts.
ReplyDelete