
People don’t like being told to stop enjoying themselves, and that has never been more apparent than in the backlash against the backlash against celebrations over the death of Osama Bin Laden. Yesterday, amidst a cacophony of articles, video clips, & infographics, each competing with each other to better illustrate “how we got him,” perhaps the most pervasive argument was over propriety: was it appropriate to celebrate the death of “Enemy No. 1″?
From that undulating discussion came a startlingly adolescent voice, one scolding the scolders for smugness, for superiority complexes, and for moralism. Take Amanda Marcotte, for example, who in her article, “Bin Laden’s Dead, Let’s Party,” likened yesterday’s naysayers to the Puritans of yesteryear. She, along with many others, saw critique of celebrations as damaging to the American national psyche, which was so desperately close to finding “closure” and, possibly, healing after the attacks of September 11th. To Marcotte’s credit, she proposed that the same energy be directed into using the event of Osama Bin Laden’s death as a springboard into finally closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, escaping the sinkhole of the war in Iraq, and deescalating a general program of American violence in the name of counter-terrorism.
Though it is easy to admire these proposals, and even agree with some of their tenets, we must also acknowledge their naïveté. First of all, conservative organs everywhere are claiming that Guantanamo and other far more dubious sites are now “vindicated,” since intelligence garnered from their vile interrogations eventually led to Abbottabad. This should go a long way toward slowing the anti-Gitmo campaign. Secondly, any call for this to be a “victory,” as Marcotte dubs it, shows a deep misunderstanding of the broader conflict. Just last week, the bombing of a tourist café in Morocco, linked to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, killed 16 people, and showed, once again, that the tentacles of violence are not contained in even the comprehensible chaos of a battle front. Furthermore, even a cursory study of, for instance, the Algerian War of Independence, will demonstrate that the assassination of a leader will not stop an insurgency movement. Thirdly, regarding Iraq, those of us that have been protesting this war even before it began have always known it was never about Bin Laden, and now that is accepted as a truism, across party lines. This event will not solve a single problem in Baghdad, and may only lead to more.
Still, despite all these concerns, it’s important to remember the main thrust of the Pro-Party Party. There’s the adult version, which is trying to critique critique, without any sense of how it subverts itself. People making these arguments seem to want a democracy without political feedback, even as they deliver it themselves. They seem to think the American social contract doesn’t depend on self-analysis, though they too analyze. Then, of course, there’s the childish version of this complaint, crying out, “let us have our fun!” and which cannot help but betray a hint of anger at knowing it is being scolded fairly. The people making these kinds of arguments often rely on the legitimacy of emotion, as if an emotion were sanction enough for any course of action. It cannot help but smack of a teenager telling his or her parents, “You can’t understand how I feel!”
Of course, this is leaving out all the well-considered and balanced arguments for marking the event of Bin Laden’s death as one of happy relief, but these are few. And even the most carefully crafted defenses of American celebrants still fail to reckon with the simple fact that foolhardy behavior, with or without comment, brings consequences. As news outlets proliferate misrepresentative images of Americans painting the town red-white-n-blue in celebration of an assassination, the rest of the world watches, and the opinions of others do matter. If the obstinate Presidency of George W. Bush didn’t teach us that, the attacks of September 11th surely must have. To blame it on a single madman is wrongheaded, and to see it as one manifestation of larger disapprovals is only to draw a step closer to the truth. Disregard for the mores of world communities, no matter how alien they may seem, will lead to more violence. Those of us seeking not only to critique the celebrations, but also to reflect to the world a more reserved response to the news—well, many of us are hoping to be one piece of the amelioration between Americans and those who would do us harm.
Still, we must be grateful for the apologists. They are a part of the democratic project, even if they seem to confuse criticism with actual intervention. By engaging in the argument, they enact and prove our right to critique the political behavior of our fellow Americans. They may want us to let them have their fun, but they legitimize our ability to speak by saying so. And even if they didn’t, we should still be ready to let people know when they are putting us all in further danger. Like the villagers in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” when we see kids playing games with a corpse, we should spread the alarm.