Taking Life: Osama Bin Ladin

I remember the first time I took a life.

I was in my teens and it happened with a knife. My hands had been shaking, but I was determined not to fail as I closed the gaps between me and my quarry. Sweat moistened my brow and my heart was pounding, but once man decides to do a deed, feelings and emotions can be suppressed.

The chicken looked at me, and our eyes locked. It couldn’t run because its legs had been tied. When I was younger, I had cried once when I knew a chicken was about to be killed. This time it was different – I had become the killer.

To the thriller and horror movie enthusiasts, this is where I disappoint you by not going into the bloody (used literally) details of how I killed the chicken. But from that day, when it lost its head, killing chickens became easier.

That said, I wish it wasn’t the same when it came to killing another fellow human being, but sadly, it is. The gruesome killings carried out for political and religious reasons, and even for entertainment, still highlight the black nature of mankind.

I heard Osama Bin Laden was dead.

I felt bad. The reason is simple. He was a human being.

I also feel bad for those he killed, and the destruction carried out by his hands – but he had his reasons for killing. That is the same way powerful nations of the world who attack other countries have their reasons for killing, like the US and other nations it is in alliance with.

If you expect me to criticise any party on either side of the divide, I will disappoint you again. I do not know the nitty-gritty details of war, or the lies and intrigue that are a huge part of politics, the reasons for death seen as collateral damage in a bid to achieve goals and aims that the masses are not told about. It is not for me to talk about things I do not know much about – I will be a fool to do so, BUT I can talk about death.

Death is evil. I can talk about war. War is horrible and there is no glory to the ‘winner’ or ‘loser’. The damage continues physically for years on the twisted bodies of the survivors, and for decades in the scarred souls of the broken, bitter and vengeful, who will stir up more war, more death, more pain…

But the world is broken.

I will end on this note using a quote from a friend and relative of mine.

“I understand why people are happy, but the death of another human being is never a reason to celebrate ... if a life must be taken, it should be done with humility not jubilation.”

For the question remains, when one dies, what happens to his soul?