When the celebration of life succumbs to the celebration of death

We are America, paragon of civilization. We are America, exemplar for the world. We are America, who rejoices at the death of our enemies. Are we really? Is that really US? Since the recent slaying of wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden, the general response of the American people and media has been one of celebration. While as a country we are celebrating the death of a terrorist, latently we are affirming our inferiority to the ideal of civilization. We are no better than than enemy who celebrates the deaths of innocent victims of terrorism. No, Osama was not innocent, but we as a nation should have more dignity than to celebrate his death – as if it meant anything more than a case closed on an open file that hasn't been relevant for years.

The fact that Americans are celebrating is not bad in itself, but that they are celebrating for the wrong reason. They celebrate because they still think Osama had an active role in commanding Al-Qaeda schemes, when more likely the significance of his death is closer tantamount to the enemy killing a former US president – emphasis on former. What Americans should be celebrating is the felling of a symbol – of the face of the enemy, of the vulnerability of America, of grievance from the tragedy of 9/11. The death of a symbol is far more powerful than the death of a person.

That is really what was at stake in Obama's directive to kill bin Laden. Sure, there likely was political capital involved as re-election draws near. But his directive wasn't to kill bin Laden the person, it was to eradicate bin Laden the symbol. When the fear is gone, the object feared still remains. Yet lacking cognizance of it by removing the face of the fear, Obama has done Americans a great service in implicitly making the world a safer place by terminating America's arch-nemesis and erasing the possibility of his direct legacy from influencing the annals of the future. No, it is not true that we are any safer when we go abroad; yet I'm sure that at least at a subconscious level each and every one of us are sleeping better at night knowing that the face of American fear has literally been effaced.