President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden late Sunday night in dramatic fashion. Soon after, Americans began to celebrate — and college students led the way.
Today’s college students all share that root memory of Sept. 11 — our “Where Were You When …” moment was an unfathomably spectacular act of violence, whereas our parents’ was the moon landing. We’re old enough to remember the day, and young enough that it was our introduction to global affairs.
Wall-to-wall coverage after the president’s speech regularly cut to images of elated students rallying outside the White House. One of the first Associated Press wires after Obama’s speech included anecdotes about students at Ohio State University and Penn State University celebrating by jumping into a lake en masse and donning Captain America costumes, respectively.
Binghamton University was no different.
Binghamton is not a “rah rah” school, we don’t get together that often, shout in unison or have school spirit recognizable to the outside world. We don’t have a football team, for instance, and our best squad is probably debate.
But the knowledge of bin Laden’s death had this campus in a rare mood. Hundreds of students participated in the revelry, and everyone else on campus heard it happening. To find the last time an event of this nature occurred, you’d have to go back almost three years to Nov. 4, 2008, the night of the last presidential election.
So what was it about the death of Osama bin Laden that was able to breathe such life into our campus, as well as many others across the country?
We looked at bin Laden as a symbol of evil. He was the face we put on terror. For the past 10 years, though he may not have been in the forefront of our thoughts, his specter and presence lingered. As a generation, we lived in fear, and regardless of how active or dormant bin Laden was in al-Qaida’s operations, the man behind the curtain of the Sept. 11 attacks was still out there.
As the news broke Sunday night, we reflexively celebrated with the knowledge that the most prominent figure in terror was now dead.
We poured out of our dorms and drove in from off campus looking to join the party. This was good news if we’ve ever seen it, and it couldn’t have come at much better of a time. The mood in the United States was dark — and getting darker — and this was just the thing to lift our spirits, even if it’s only fleeting.
Some decried the rally, citing the dangers of nationalistic groupthink and the unabashed celebration of death, even if it was the death of bin Laden. For them, the mob was a reason to be worried.
But a deeper look proved this “mob” was no monolithic force. It was composed of students with varied and often nuanced views. You had the overly enthusiastic patriots, the marginalized pacifists, the sarcastic skeptics, the beer-swilling hooligans and the curious onlookers — at least in the beginning.
Yet as the night progressed, those there to merely celebrate the day’s events went back to sleep or study. The core that remained represented a striking portrait of what this day in history should not mean. The initial plurality of views was overpowered by a tide of over-the-top patriotism that was more interested in American dominance than global security.
May 1 was the day that the United States finally killed Osama bin Laden. Let’s not let it be the day Americans caved to jingoism and let blind patriotism cloud their better judgment.