Beyond Good and Evil: The Life and Times of Osama Bin Laden

Rarely has the death of one individual been the cause of so much celebration.  Thousands of people in the United States gathered in triumphant rejoice with the news that Osama Bin Laden has been killed.  President Obama has called it a “good day for America” while Prime Minister Harper has taken the opportunity to exploit Bin Laden’s death to justify his deployment of Canadian troops to Afghanistan.  But before we all jump up and down and pat our leaders on the back, let us first examine what such a reaction says about our worldview and about us more generally.

There were around 3,000 deaths on the tragic day of September 11, 2001.  Immediately, Americans passed through an emotional vortex from shock to sadness to anger to blame to war with an unfortunate promptness.  It was unfortunate because public policy should never be decided on while the logic of the collective masses was detained by their emotions.  This has always been a breeding ground for irrationalism and further allows for what Naomi Klein has termed ‘the shock doctrine’, policy that is passed while the public is in shock with the onset of a disastrous event.  The outcome, of course, has been a decade long war on terror.

Depending on what side you are aligned in the conflict, you are perceived to be either good or evil, freedom fighter or terrorist.  On the one side, the United States military personnel are awarded the highest of honours for their attacks on countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, countries where tall buildings have been decimated, historical artifacts destroyed and pillaged, women raped, civilians kidnapped and imprisoned without evidence of their transgressions, and where upwards of a million have died as a result of the supposed war on terror.  The horrors and atrocities that come along with warfare are still inflicted on Iraqis and Afghans everyday.  Imagine for a moment that September 11 was just the beginning of a nearly decade, and counting, long campaign to exert foreign influence upon the United States.  This has been the reality of these countries as America is trying desperately to hold onto its rapidly declining global power.  And for these countries there is still no end in sight to the conflict.

On the other side of the conflict, al Qaeda has been demonized for conducting a military offensive against a perceived threat.  In fact, what was so shocking about this attack was not how al Qaeda attacked but who they attacked, a country that was once thought to be untouchable in its dominance.  The targets they chose were strategic military targets that any belligerent force would have attempted to target.  This is the nature of war.  Military, political, and economic targets are the most highly sought after targets.  For many, the White House, Pentagon, and World Trade Centre symbolize the imperialistic character of the United States.  These are three institutions that have, for better or worse, touched every corner of the globe with their influence.  When puppet governments are pacified in the Middle East, or elsewhere, by the influence of a foreign power, there will always be opposition amongst the people. Al Qaeda rose up to fill this role.  Sadly, they were guided by the same destructive dichotomous thinking as their opponents and sought out the death of a perceived evil.

In order to progress as a society, we have to look beyond simplistic dichotomies of good and evil, narratives that have indoctrinated us from birth lodged within fairytales, religious stories, political propaganda, etc.  This type of categorizing and partitioning of the world is false, misleading, and very dangerous.  Instead of seeking to understand one another, we are handed pre-packaged images in black and white coupled with the binary that if you’re not with us, you’re against us.

Osama Bin Laden was not on the side of good.  Nor was he on the side of evil.  He was a human being consumed by a false belief in these two dichotomies.  For Bin Laden, America was evil. America was corrupt, greedy, and power hungry.  And while these latter three characteristics may aptly apply to many Americans and much of America’s foreign policy, it does not define Americans as a people.  It does not justify the murder of American lives anymore than the American occupation and decimation of foreign nations could be justified by a diffusion of freedom.  And to celebrate the death of this man is ironically to accept, and ultimately perpetuate the ideology of good and evil that was the very foundation of Bin Laden’s actions (and for much of the world’s conflicts).  What would be cause for celebration is the death of this idea of good and evil.  Only then could we really seek to understand one another and begin our struggle towards a more peaceful world.

“What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.” – Friedrich Nietzsche