I've seen a wide range of reactions from Americans in response to the death of Osama bin Laden. The most extreme seem to have been from people around my age; born in the late 1980's and early '90s. There is talk in the news about how we are a generation that grew up with Osama bin Laden as "the Boogeyman" in an attempt to explain the jubilance over his death. For those of us who were in junior high, those pivotal ages between 11 and 14, on September 11, 2001 Osama bin Laden's death does not represent just the banishment of an imaginary monster but a renewed optimism for the future.
Growing up in the 90's, particularly the late 90's, the attitude was that "today's kids" were going to inhabit a utopia; a world where cancer is curable, a world where the unemployment rate never rises over 5%, a world that would undoubtedly see man reach Mars. My dad used to look at me and say, "I can only imagine what you'll see in your lifetime" with a smile on his face and the slightest hint of jealousy in his eye. Now when he says that it's with a drink in his hand and a distant look of fear in his eye. My father's drinking problem aside, my generation came of age in a post 9/11 world that has been a decade of American embarrassments.
From the ages of 13-20 I watched "The Greatest Country Ever" lose bin Laden in December of 2001, march into a quickly unpopular war in Iraq beginning in 2003, try to ignore the existence of impoverished communities during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and render taxpayers helpless against high finance crooks who hijacked and crashed the global economy in August of 2008. I came to expect as little as possible from not just "The Greatest Nation on Earth" but most other trusted institutions often looked to in times of crisis; and I was far from alone. What the nation lost on September 11th along with 3,000 of our brothers and sisters, was our confidence in our eternal optimistic view of the future. We pretended that was not the case, but each of the events that followed underscored the feelings we had on September 11th; the feelings that the world would not be our oyster, but in fact our smelly piece of old shrimp.
I still don't know how bin Laden's death makes me feel. When my dad told me early Monday morning it suddenly made the text "Oh shit!Osama!!" I saw I received after falling asleep the night before. I have to say, I was fairly pleased as I washed up for the day. I hadn't started a day with a smile like that since the day President *Blank* was sworn in as President of the United States and ended the Bush era, an eight year period that felt at least twice as long. It wasn't until I stopped for gas on my way to class that I thought about why we have problems with radicals in the middle east. And it all stems from a combination of support for ruthless dictators and Israeli aggression. All so that we have access to oil, the slippery grease that lubricates the gears of the engine that is the economy.
I understand the impetus for celebration for Sunday night's news, especially from a generation who remembers Osama bin Laden's actions as the beginning of a spiraling world of fear and doubt, a world very different from the one we had come to expect before September 11th. I hope that this event results in a renewed vigor in a call for our troops to come home from Afghanistan and Iraq as well as an end to drone attacks in Pakistan. No longer can our presence over seas be justified by one man, just as the uprisings of the Arab Spring have proven that democracy cannot be enforced upon a people, but instead must be claimed by the people themselves as they did in Egypt and Tunisia, as they are doing in Syria and Bahrain. There is no power like that of the masses when it comes to fighting tyranny and injustice. This is just as true for occupying nations as it is for dictatorships and monarchies.
All that being said, bin Laden's death is not worth holding onto. It maybe the closest thing the country has had to a national "feel good moment" in a decade, which says a lot about how largely depressing a decade it has been. But it is not worth setting up a large yellow lawn letters reading "Rot in Hell You Son of a Bitch". It's not worth accompanying the phrase "may he rot in hell" to any mention of his name. We need to take this opportunity to shift the focus to our country. Holding onto hatred is self destructive and only vindicates bin Laden and Al Qaeda's intentions to change the way we live through acts of terror.
Still, I have hope that bin Laden's death can be a rebirth of a more positive consciousness for my generation as well as the Obama presidency. I don't think the link is superficial. Suddenly there's a small light at the end of the tunnel that has felt like the stalling out of the world power we're now impatiently clamoring to exist in. And the aloof and indecisive president often accused of being too academic now looks not just strong on defense, but kinda like if Batman fucked James Bond. Does this mean that lower unemployment rates for college grads and a stronger negotiating tactics from the White House when it comes to issues like the Bush Tax Cuts and cuts in public services versus higher taxes on large corporations? Probably not. But who knows? I mean, he DID get bin Laden.
