I remember watching Osama Bin Laden’s televised interview with Al-Jazeera sometime before the 2004 US presidential elections.
For the first time, he openly took responsibility for the attack on the World Trade Center.
He explained how he watched the US bomb towers in Lebanon in 1982, which then burst into flames with men, women and children in them.
And then he said, simply, that he wanted Americans to feel something of the misery and powerlessness his Arab brothers felt.
In that moment, he said, he conceived the notion of the 9/11 attacks.
***
Of course, I obviously don’t sympathize with that act of violence–which will, however, go down in history as one of the most ingenious, audacious and in a twisted way, conceptually brilliant attack by a private citizen on a powerful nation. It ranks up there in military history with the perhaps mythical account of the Trojan Horse.
With the sacrifice of 19 willing young volunteers, he threw the world’s largest economy and most powerful nation into a downward spiral from which it has not yet recovered.
* * *
I think about Osama off and on. I have several times prayed for the most hunted man in the world.
I am committed to non-violence in the way Jesus taught. I am interested in what happens if one follows non-violence in personal relationships. Sometimes, in a micro-scale, in personal relationships, when I am criticized, rightly or wrongly; when I am subjected to angry words, I just remain silent, leaving my vindication with God. No good comes out of retaliation, revenge, rage, returning anger with anger.
* * *
Osama was not a Christian. He saw towers full of Arab men, women and children burn. He wanted something to be done about it. He said, he wanted American to feel what his Arab brothers felt. As the American poet, Bob Haas might have put it, to awaken their moral imagination.
As a private citizen, not a writer, not a blogger, was there anything else he could have done to protest injustice?
His protest, however, was futile. 19 young pilots dead, 3000 American civilians dead, 250,000 civilians killed in Iraq, more Americans killed in Iraq than in the World Trade Centre, continuing devastation in Afghanistan…..
* * *
Meeting violence with violence is an intuitive, instinctive response.
Jesus tells us it does not work. I absolutely believe him.
On the face of it, violence has always seemed an effective way for private citizens to protest the injustices of the world.
However, as Gandhi said, meditating on Jesus’s words, “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”
* * *
Non-violence and gentleness works on a micro-level, in personal relationships, I believe (though I have not practised it nearly enough) because there is a factor of X, the power of God, which comes into a situation and changes it, when one is gentle, one does not defend oneself, but instead relies on God for his protection.
And how would this work on a macro-level in world politics?
Hmm. I do not know the answer?
Any thoughts?
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Osama Bin Laden. RIP. Thoughts on Violence and Non-Violence
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Emily, welcome to my blog, and thank you for your thoughtful, thought-provoking comments, which I shall mull over. Thanks for taking the time to write so thoroughly!
I read he was given an burial in accordance with islamic practices, prayers etc. I think Obama is respectful and careful enough to do as much as possible to behave appropriately during this.
DNA evidence was obtained. I've heard conspiracy theories already because no one has seen a photo (although they are still deciding whether this is appropriate) and that he wasn't really dead. He'd just show up on tv anyway so why look stupid? Obama wouldn't stake his reputation on it.
I'm not sure I agree with his rational on what he saw in 1982. 20 years later, 911 was premeditated with no military target. It was deliberately a non-military target, the biggest tower they could find. To what? Prove a point?
Americans weren't aiming at women and children with prior knowledge, just randomly. They are always after military targets or they are breaking the law. Can you imagine if they were found to be malicious? Something so against the very essence of that society and the 'American way'. It's just plain wrong to allow or accept it and every soldier and officer has ethics drummed in to them, in every film, in every story in society since birth. It's inconceivable they would do it on purpose. In contrast, no law controls terrorists, they do what they like.
Thankfully intelligence and technology is far more sophisticated then 30 years back and prevents as much innocent civilians getting caught in the cross fire as possible, it's much better than it was and I really hope that continues or I'll be digging my bomb shelter in the back garden! In the Blitz, germans and londoners were bombed, it's not just a problem for arabs that we need to be reminded of, it still makes him pure evil and hatred,… but also WW2 was an officially announced war by governments; people were prepared. Is that not true of this Lebanon conflict? People had no idea in NYC that day in 2001. It's not the same to me.
Common understanding and learning about each others cultures promotes better links and friendship not hatred, but his actions were not going to achieve what he wanted. Two wrongs don't make a right, particularly when one was murder and the other was really effectively manslaughter and in official war status (I can't imagine it would be anything else) even manslaughter doesn't really apply. There have to be some rules to these things or armies would be terrorists which of course, they are not. I don't know what the answer is but these things cannot be solved in his manner. Elected governments have to. War is and has been a fact of life for centuries, it's not changing any time soon. People have way too much to fight about apparently, endless amounts in fact. We can only keep learning how not to, when not to, diplomacy etc.
The day he confessed publically that he was responsible, was the day he signed his own death sentence and, given the nature of his fighting technique (i.e. bombs, traps, things strapped to everything in sight) and the risk and consequence of letting him go, I just don't see it as quite the same as finding Sadaam, putting him on trial etc. etc. This was a pretty much foregone conclusion and although I hear the Navy seals were prepared to arrest not kill, I'm not going to blame some of the most highly trained men in the world for taking that action if they felt it necessary.
….with reprisals?… they have to prove they can do it without him perhaps. He got caught and no one in even that organisation could be surprised by the result. I'm not at all surprised in this case.
Obama is at constant risk of assasination, like every other president, even from his own people so there is nothing new there either.
Fear of what happens next…. well, that's terrorism for you.
I'm not sure I agree with his rational on what he saw in 1982. 20 years later, 911 was premeditated with no military target. It was deliberately a non-military target, the biggest tower they could find. To what? Prove a point?
Americans weren't aiming at women and children with prior knowledge, just randomly. They are always after military targets or they are breaking the law. Can you imagine if they were found to be malicious? Something so against the very essence of that society and the 'American way'. It's just plain wrong to allow or accept it and every soldier and officer has ethics drummed in to them, in every film, in every story in society since birth. It's inconceivable they would do it on purpose. In contrast, no law controls terrorists, they do what they like.
Thankfully intelligence and technology is far more sophisticated then 30 years back and prevents as much innocent civilians getting caught in the cross fire as possible, it's much better than it was and I really hope that continues or I'll be digging my bomb shelter in the back garden! In the Blitz, germans and londoners were bombed, it's not just a problem for arabs that we need to be reminded of, it still makes him pure evil and hatred,… but also WW2 was an officially announced war by governments; people were prepared. Is that not true of this Lebanon conflict? People had no idea in NYC that day in 2001. It's not the same to me.
Common understanding and learning about each others cultures promotes better links and friendship not hatred, but his actions were not going to achieve what he wanted. Two wrongs don't make a right, particularly when one was murder and the other was really effectively manslaughter and in official war status (I can't imagine it would be anything else) even manslaughter doesn't really apply. There have to be some rules to these things or armies would be terrorists which of course, they are not. I don't know what the answer is but these things cannot be solved in his manner. Elected governments have to. War is and has been a fact of life for centuries, it's not changing any time soon. People have way too much to fight about apparently, endless amounts in fact. We can only keep learning how not to, when not to, diplomacy etc.
The day he confessed publically that he was responsible, was the day he signed his own death sentence and, given the nature of his fighting technique (i.e. bombs, traps, things strapped to everything in sight) and the risk and consequence of letting him go, I just don't see it as quite the same as finding Sadaam, putting him on trial etc. etc. This was a pretty much foregone conclusion and although I hear the Navy seals were prepared to arrest not kill, I'm not going to blame some of the most highly trained men in the world for taking that action if they felt it necessary.
….with reprisals?… they have to prove they can do it without him perhaps. He got caught and no one in even that organisation could be surprised by the result. I'm not at all surprised in this case.
Obama is at constant risk of assasination, like every other president, even from his own people so there is nothing new there either.
Fear of what happens next…. well, that's terrorism for you.
Oddly enough, I feel more uneasy now than before. I feel reprisals are virtually certain.
However, Obama was partially elected on a mandate to deal with Al Queda, and as President, I suppose he did what he had to to safeguard his countrymen. It was murder without a trial though–and this assassination sets another dangerous international precedent.
Let's see how things will pan out!
Yes, Jesus tells us this does not work. I believe him, too. This has been the way of the world for ever and probably will be for ever. But I do not believe that it is God's way.
I was struck by the 9/11 survivor's comment, “I just can’t find it in me to be glad one more person is dead, even if it is Osama Bin Laden.” Thanks, Anita, for that brave post.
Hi. Thinking about this all morning. Killing Osama and dumping his body at sea seems as lawless as Osama's terrorism. I wonder if he could have been captured and tried as Sadaam was? Or if his body could have been given a dignified burial?
Who knows what reprisals this is going to unleash?
I do agree that violence is never the answer but for world peace to surface all actors must be willing to participate in dialogue. Without dialogue no compromise can be had.
“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”
absolutely says it all.
Violence is not an answer, more a red rag to a bull, however provoked, turning the other cheek is the only possible retort for a follower of Christ.
Easier to say than do but worth pursuing if humanly possible.
Thank you.