No More Boogeyman

No More Boogeyman

Eduardo Sayago | 1 May 2011

For the past decade, our nation (and the world) lived in fear. We were subjected to harsh and often controversial security measures in airports, public places, and government buildings. We looked at our skylines and monuments, fearing that they might not be there the next day or second. An entire ethnic group (Arabs) and a scared religion (Islam) was discriminated and attacked by many people who did not know better or feared them because they were perceived as terrorists who wanted to kill us in cold-blood. Entire legions of talking pundits created careers and gathered followings by attacking Arabs and Islam.

Tragedy often unites people together. On this occasion, a victory unites people together. Osama bin Laden, the most hated man since Adolf Hitler (who committed suicide exactly 66 years after the latter killed himself in a secluded compound in Berlin) was killed in a firefight between US troops in a large compound 60 miles (100 km) from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

“Justice has been done,” said President Obama in a live televised broadcast from the West Wing.

I hear fireworks a few houses down the street and several people celebrating outside. Thousands are outside the White House gates, chanting “USA! USA! USA!” waving flags, taking pictures; happy and victorious that their country has defeated the face of evil.

Tomorrow is uncertain. We are not sure what the fate of al-Qaida will be. Will they retaliate? Will they splinter into irrelevance? Will another person replace bin Laden and try to continue the organization’s efforts at demonizing our planet?

Just as soon as this news breaks across the globe, people have taken to the World Wide Web and begun politicizing this event. “Obama got Osama,” chants one commenter on CNN. A few say that this will help Obama’s reelection. I dunno how those two actions are connected. George H.W. Bush got the Iraqis out of Kuwait yet he lost his reelection bid. Winston Churchill got the United Kingdom through WWII and the evil forces of Hitler yet lost his reelection bid mere months after the war ended.

September 11th was not bin Laden and al-Qaida’s only act of terrorism upon civilians and soldiers who did nothing wrong, nothing to deserve their premature deaths. 9/11 sparked many more attacks around the world, from the bombings of trains in Spain to double-deckers and metro stations in London blown beyond recognition. Americans were not the only people who were attacked. Everyone was a target, no matter what their nationality, creed, race, religion or socioeconomic status.

September 11th changed our nation, our world, and our lives. One day we have to explain to children who were born after this tragic day that once upon a time we lived in a world where you didn’t have entire blocks of downtown closed because someone left a duffle bag on a train or in a lobby. Or airport security was much easier to handle. Or the government didn’t have a Department of Homeland Security. Or that Afghanistan is an actual country with a rich history and culture and not the epicenter for a group of terrorists. Three kids in my family, my sister Fatima (age 5) and my cousins Emilio (age 5) and Mia (age 3) will one day see the images of the World Trade Center in a completely different lenses than you and I see it. To them, this world we have been thrown into without warning on that Tuesday morning in 2001 is their world now.

We may have won the battle but we still need a hell of a lot more to accomplish in order to win this war, which becomes more difficult and complex every year. At least now we have been granted justice and some closure. bin Laden may have changed our world for worse by instilling fear amongst its people but he can no longer determine the world’s fate. He does not get to be the boogeyman any more. #