Not all praise celebration over bin Laden's death

While many students took news of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s death as a reason for celebration, the jubilance was not unanimously shared across campus.

For some, the celebratory flash mobs, the midnight chants and the proliferation of witty updates on Facebook and Twitter indicated a degree of insensitivity toward the event.

"You should not rejoice in death no matter how much you hate a person," said College sophomore Humna Bhojani, who is from Pakistan. "It's insensitive to the lives lost."

For Bhojani, the celebrations showed a lack of consideration toward possible retaliation that Pakistanis now faces from the Taliban.

"Even if the government can increase security, there are still people within Islamabad who are capable of taking action if they want to," Bhojani said, adding that she is worried about her mother who lives in Islamabad, a city just 35 miles from where bin Laden hid.

"Yes, there will be attempts to take revenge," Communications professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson wrote in an email. "But these were bound to happen at some point, whenever Bin Laden was eliminated.”

"I am personally glad this is occurring at a time when events in the Muslim world are driving home the fact that the masses of Muslims share hopes for democracy and better standards of living, not violent Jihad and fantasies of Armageddon against the infidels," she added.

Despite this, some American students felt that the celebrations were insensitive.

"It is horrible for America's image when we parade in the streets after any death, let alone the death of someone that, for the average American, is so connected to an international tragedy," College freshman and Penn Democrats Communications Director Andrew Brown said.

"I think it is a gross misunderstanding to celebrate this as winning the war on terror," he added.

However, College senior Grant Dubler pointed out that celebrating the death of bin Laden may serve a cathartic purpose.

"Every generation in the past has its singular tragedy where everyone remembers where they were," Dubler said, adding that for his grandparents, VJ day — when the US declared victory over Japan — marked a "cathartic triumph" for the loss of Pearl Harbor.

Bin Laden’s death — after a decade of pursuit — is a comparable event for our generation, he said.

"While this is not the end to the war on terror, this is definitely a triumph," Dubler said. "There was this great unifying feeling and it definitely brought out a lot of patriotic spirit."

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