Iowans ask deep questions in wake of bin Laden’s death

When President Barack Obama informed the nation Sunday that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. troops in Pakistan, many Americans took to the streets in celebration.

The event provoked more complicated reactions for others.

Few mourn the al-Qaida leader's passing, but whether the event is cause for jubilation has many checking their moral compass.

Lydia Hartunian, a philosophy professor at Kirkwood Community College, said her first reaction was to think about how she instinctively wanted to respond to the news.

“You're looking at a loss of life, but more so the philosophy entailed with that life,” said Hartunian.

Hartunian considers herself a secular humanist and is the faculty adviser for the campus group “Kirkwood for Reason.” She said that bin Laden's philosophy was so abhorrent that she couldn't disagree with his death despite her aversion to the method.

In this respect, she has much in common with many of her religious counterparts.

The Roman Catholic Church issued a statement reminding its adherents that death is never something that should be celebrated, said the Rev. Rudolph Juarez, pastor at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Iowa City.

“I find no reason to rejoice over his death, but there is a certain part of me that is satisfied with knowing he is no longer in the picture,” said Juarez.

Juarez added that Catholic belief puts bin Laden's fate in God's hands, and that the parish prayed that he would be judged justly and mercifully during Mass this week.

Teacher Dan Devore spent much of Monday taking the different moral debates using the social networking service Twitter so he could address the subject during his Cedar Rapids Prairie Point Middle School and Ninth Grade Academy global studies class Tuesday.

His students were 4 to 5 years old during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, so Devore explored the background and different perspectives relating to bin Laden's life and death.

“The biggest topic that they wanted to talk about is why would he be given a proper burial. We went over that and the benefits of doing it that way and the political ramifications,” he said.

Devore's classes ended up possessing a wide range of opinions ranging from celebrating the death to concluding that it was solely an act of revenge.

The latter opinion is closer to the beliefs of the Rev. Zuiko Redding, a Buddhist minister at the Cedar Rapids Zen Center. Redding didn't deny that bin Laden was an evil man, but she doesn't see how his death made the world a safer place.

“Osama bin Laden was a violent person. To move violently against him will not solve very much. We already see it in our own fears about retaliation,” she said.

Some of the open jubilation in response to the news was in very poor taste, said Redding.

“To celebrate that he's died and that he's died in such a violent and brutal way seems to me like the ancient days in England when people's heads were impaled on spikes in front of the palace. It just doesn't seem appropriate,” she said.

Kirkwood liberal arts student Jerry Mattox of Cedar Rapids wasn't out celebrating, but he did get a feeling of satisfaction that he summed up with a quote by Andrew Sullivan, a blogger for The Daily Beast.

“Not joy at vengeance, nor joy at death. Just joy at justice.”