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| From What the eyes cannot see |
The names Osama and Obama do sound alike, yet there are stark differences how we see these famous personalities. One may be a messenger of freedom and the other is a messenger of the new renaissance – but to who is who for you? It is almost a bolt from the blue that an unsolicited partiality lingers at the back of our heads as we assess what had happened a few days back. The battle between Osama and Obama, and Obama won. The spectators felt that the world will be a better place after the incident; the Americans think that justice was served after a long and arduous journey; some feared the worst of terrorism is yet to come. Difficult it is to say that Osama was the living devil, as the school of thought dictates, as he might have argumentatively pointed a finger at every living American as the true Lucifer.
This variation of how we see Osama Bin Laden created a whirlwind controversy as to how true justice should have went down on him. General ethics have told us that every human being deserves a certain level of respect and holds a degree of intrinsic value that no man should ever take away from. Dignity, honour and life are some examples to name a few. That these core tenets should always be upheld even at the midst of war, death and sheer chaos. Rules of engagement have been ever evolving throughout the millennia but its fundamentals serve as what delineates justice from retribution. With this, is it safe to say that justice was never served to Osama Bin Laden since he was killed in the fire fight? Or was the verdict closed the moment he exclaimed to the world that he was the mastermind on most terrorist killings that had influenced the death of five thousand innocent lives or more?
The date of Osama Bin Laden’s death almost aligned itself with Pope John Paul II’s beatification for sainthood. It is as if Father Time was sending us a message that there is parity between sinners and saints. That sinners are saints, and saints are sinners – an allegory that succumbs to the realities of today as we continue to press on thinking we are pure in spirit, living with the false sense of hope that we built a society that prides itself with morality, justice and liberties. In order for us to determine who is the sheep and who is the wolf in sheep’s clothing, we might have to assume that both are wolves until the dust has settled. But by far, it seems that the USA was the sheep in this story that cranked it up and after 10 years, finally outran the wolf.
