INSIDE AMERICA

THE LONG NIGHT OF OUR
DESIRE FOR JUSTICE
WHAT REALLY RESPONDS TO THE SUFFERINGS OF THE VICTIMS OF THE 9/11 ATTACKS? AN EMBRACE FULL OF MERCY THAT GIVES BIRTH TO A NEW WAY OF LIVING OUR HUMANITY–A MARKED CONTRAST TO STREET CELEBRATIONS OVER THE DEATH OF THE ENEMY…

BY LORENZO ALBACETE

COMMENTING ON THE MORALITY OF THE EXECUTION OF OSAMA BIN LADEN IN THE MAY 16TH ISSUE OF NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE, NOBEL LAUREATE AUTHOR ELIE WIESEL (CF., "A DEATH DESERVED") WRITES: "PICTURES OF AMERICANS CELEBRATING AND REJOICING ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON, D.C., WERE SHOWN ALL OVER THE WORLD. THEY WERE PEOPLE WHO FELT COMPELLED TO DEMONSTRAte their satisfaction that the man they considered their No. 1 enemy was finally dead.
Normally, I would respond to such scenes with deep apprehension. The execution of a human being–any human being–should never be an event to be celebrated. Death–anyone's–must be taken seriously, thoughtfully.
This time is different. As we listened to President Obama report to the nation and the world the news of bin Laden's capture and death, I, too, shared in the collective response of so many Americans: 'He got what he deserved.' He committed too many crimes, too many murders–he caused too much suffering–for his death to arouse pity or sadness. By his actions, he gave up any right to human compassion.
Sadly, he was not the only one put at risk by the American operation. There were others. Among them, children. And children are never guilty. Still, it was bin Laden himself who placed them in harm's way. War is never just…"
Wiesel seems to be saying that there are circumstances in which the injustice inherent to war must be tolerated, risked—indeed, accepted—in order to achieve a just end. The execution of bin Laden is one such case. "The decision of President Obama," he writes, "reconfirms our faith in the nation's leadership and the ability of our men in and out of uniform to restore some semblance of order, however fragile." Therefore, "let us rejoice and hope that this will be a time of rededication to the ideals of peace, cooperation, and mutual respect among nations, all concepts that bin Laden sought vainly to destroy."
I know that if I had been the relative or close friend of a victim of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, I would agree completely with what Wiesel writes. However, there is another view of reality, another kind of human response to the frustrating limitations of our desires for full justice, solidarity, diversity, and peace.
In his classic account of his encounter with absolute evil called, appropriately, Night, Wiesel responds in the following way to his experience as a boy in the Auschwitz concentration camp:
"Never shall I forget that night…which has turned my life into one long night… Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God… Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."
In his Introduction to Night, the French Catholic writer Francois Mauriac is aware of the different way of looking at reality made possible by his faith. He recalls how the suffering, pain, and persecution that lead Wiesel to his crisis of faith is exactly the basis for the Christian conception of God as Mercy revealed in Jesus Christ. His faith in the God revealed by Jesus leads Mauriac to his discovery of grace, and gives birth to a new way of living his humanity. Mauriac said nothing about his faith to Wiesel. Instead, he gives witness to it and, speechless, he "embraced him, weeping."
The Holocaust is not comparable (sufferings never are) to the attack of 9/11, but on the day of bin Laden's death we were shown another way of looking at reality, the way of looking at the world with the perspective of a new humanity: the way of Mercy that we saw in the life of Blessed John Paul II, beatified on the same day.
From this perspective, the way of responding to the sufferings of the victims, relatives, and friends of the terrorist attack engineered and ordered by bin Laden is to embrace them, weeping with them. It is not by celebrating in the streets.