There is too much to say, to feel, to think. I cried through the President’s announcement the other day – tears of relief, not joy or sadness. But I am most happy for the people who might be able to get out from under the evil that Bin Laden was:
Something similar was on the minds of residents in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, home to the city’s Little Pakistan. A group of men at a halal butcher shop called Bin Laden’s death a blessing. In the office of a Muslim community group, advocates handed out celebratory sweets. In a kebab restaurant, an Afghan waitress said she hoped people would finally stop linking her people with terrorism.
Indeed, the neighborhood was alive with hope on Monday that the terrorist’s removal would mark a new beginning for Muslims in New York, many of whom have felt under suspicion since the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Thank God he’s gone — it’s good news for the whole world,” said Ahmad Sajjad, the owner of a grocery store where men gathered to discuss the news. “It’s finished. Now we can go back to 2000.”
But Mian Zain, a customer, was less sanguine. “Someone will take over for him,” he said. “The game is not over.”
Mohammad Razvi, executive director of the Council of Peoples Organizations, a Muslim advocacy group, cloaked his building on Coney Island Avenue with a two-story American flag on Monday. “It’s a celebration for everyone,” he said. “This guy had nothing to do with Islam.”
At the Islamic Cultural Center on East 96th Street in Manhattan, the imam, Shamsi Ali, agreed. He likened Bin Laden to a cancer growing in the body of the Muslim community that had finally been cut out.
“We really applaud the efforts of the U.S. government,” he said. “Hopefully this will be the start of Muslim communities living in tranquillity and peace.”
At the largely Afghan Hazrat Abubakr Mosque in Flushing, Queens, celebrations were being planned for the weekend, and the imam, Mohammad Sherzad, said he was overjoyed at the terrorist’s death, not least because of the violence he had perpetrated against his own people.
“Everybody was happy because we suffer a lot from that criminal,” he said. “Before anybody else, he did a lot of crimes against the Muslims.”
The whole piece is very well done – balanced, thoughtful, varied. It put me back in NYC for an instant, and in Brooklyn in particular. I think it is hard to understand that we never stopped mourning in New York, and probably never will, but this death, at least, is a sign that someday we might.