My son and I awoke some time today around 6:30am. While he ate breakfast and played and I sipped my coffee, the morning news discussed the death of Osama Bin Laden ad naseum.
I am as patriotic as the next person, perhaps even more so, yet I just couldn't get over all the images of baseball stadiums and college campuses filled with people standing, cheering, chanting "USA, USA!" Something about those scenes and actions left a bad taste in my mouth. It all reminded me of the Wizard of Oz, with the Munchkins prancing around in spectacle singing "ding dong, the witch is dead".
Unsettling.
As I watched my young son I just kept thinking about how I would someday have to reconcile this dichotomy of purpose with him, as well as my future students; that we strive to build a classroom based on community and compassion, showing our students the value of each and every person - each and every living, breathing, human being - yet we nationally revel in the death of one man, no matter how vile he may have been.
Here is an article from Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times in today's paper (Wednesday) that echoes my concerns and is able to go into further detail that I could in a small blog post.
ReplyDeletehttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2014950778_danny04.html
I understand your feelings, and felt the same way when they found Saddam Hussein, and described pulling him out of the hole he was hiding in. I know these men had no regard for human life, and were willing to sacrifice even their own people for their benefit, but it is still unsettling for me to see the celebration of a person being killed. And I wonder, too, how to reconcile that in a classroom of young children who are looking to me to know the answer. Do you have to learn to temper your emotion and opinions and stick with the facts?
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