There is an inexplicable aura that surrounds the early hours of the morning. Words cannot adequately capture the stillness protruded only by the hurried collision of thoughts that buzz through my head. This past weekend in particular, however, the implicit commotion of the early morning was eradicated.
Instead, for the past few historical days, the early morning has played host to a Pope’s beatification, the birth of royalty through marriage and the aftermath brought on by the death of one of the most controversial figures of the 21st century. Over the course of the past four months, the world has lay a hapless witness to devastating natural disasters, blossoming royal love, poor retail choices and the remembrance of even poorer personal ones.
I have been privileged to commentate on the complexity of our world through both joyous and trying times. As I embarked on my journalistic odyssey through the tangled web of global issues I wanted to share with readers, I found that I reiterated one sentiment with surprising consistency: whatever the country of the event or the people involved, the consequences affected us all. But even more pertinently, every single one of those news stories elicited deep emotion society was compelled to feel.
Furthermore, our collective destiny is within human grasp. In just three days, the world has witnessed events that have profoundly changed the face of global diplomacy and perspective. As Pope John Paul II’s beatification took place early on a Sunday morning, worshippers flocked to witness his path to sainthood. It was inconsequential where they had come from or what individual volition had driven them to witness a pivotal point in history: they were a part of something much greater than the solitary human being.
The state of Alabama, as well as other southern areas of the United States, have been ravaged by a severe tornado that has annihilated the past and destroyed the present for so many. The early morning brought with it a calm light over the destruction in the storm’s wake. There is nothing quite like the chaos of the early morning.
The clock read four a.m. on Friday morning. All was quiet as I slipped down to the television in anticipation. To my surprise, there was a cluster of seven other girls there, buzzing with excitement for the upcoming event. My very first column covered the royal engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton and it was fitting that the culmination of just under a decade’s worth of uncertainty was coming to an end for my last.
Undoubtedly, some of the hysteria was satirical: People.com seemed to have regurgitated every single known fact about the wedding complete with play-by-play pictures in stalkerish detail. No doubt, many considered the pomp and ceremony as ridiculously outdated and an abomination in these times of austerity. “The monarchy has no political function, the institution is antiquated and the wedding is nothing more than a drain of tax money.” Quite honestly, we didn’t care. We weren’t concerned that the temptation of sleep was forgone to lap up cheesy, American news coverage of every waking moment interrupted by commercials advertising low fat cereals, health insurance and Vagisil. This moment wasn’t chained down to the confines of reality.
As the horse guards proudly marched with instruments in hand to the delight of the crowds, there existed a sense of pride, a time travel to the days of chivalry and etiquette. Two billion people from nations near and far did not watch the union of a prince to the woman he loves because it was socioeconomically relevant. My generation was too young to appreciate the demise of Princess Diana and her untimely death that succeeded her deep unhappiness. Seeing the wreckage of a car in the Parisian tunnel was horrific but in childhood it was difficult to understand. This day brought finality: the British press remarked that in death, she would have been proud to see that her son married for love despite growing up in the face of emotional strife.
Amidst the grandeur of Westminster Abbey, a hush descended in front of televisions, radios and computers as Kate halted in front of the altar facing her bashful prince. Her shaky hand left her father’s grasp as he struggled to hold back tears. Perhaps the designer of the lace that adorned the bride’s shoulders is inconsequential. In the greater political or social spheres, it doesn’t matter which milliner was responsible for some of the horrors that adorned women’s heads claiming to be “hats.” Nevertheless, the truth is that for three or four of those early morning hours, life could temporarily morph into a fairy tale. In a world consistently devastated by warfare, economic hardship, dwindling natural resources and cultural tensions, here was a rare exhibit of unity.
The clock read about 11 p.m. on Sunday night. The pounding of keys on computers could be heard as students worked diligently. Last minute scrambles to complete a research paper and cram for a test created a diligent urgency that was infectious. I casually hit refresh on my web browser as I perused the day’s news stories. The headline blinked before my eyes. Osama bin Laden was found and killed. President Obama was due to make an important announcement shortly.
I don’t believe it is news to anyone what occurred afterward. Many have concerned themselves with the moralistic and political implications of the impassioned displays that spread across campuses in America. Bizarrely, just like watching a royal wedding, the immediate aftermath of such an announcement did not lend itself to rationality and even more strangely, was an instance of unity.
There are rare instances in our lifetimes that we are faced with the daunting responsibility of writing history, reaching a real life ultimatum. The day after the news of bin Laden’s fate broke, coinciding with Holocaust Remembrance Day, there was a reflective calm underlying the media frenzy. We must not fall into the trap of over-politicization: instead, a constructive way forward has to have humanity at the forefront.
The ramifications of Obama’s orders in the situation room should not be limited to a surefire win in the 2012 election. Otherwise, all the suffering and expenditure that has gone to the last decade of conflict will have been in vain. History is not made by events as individual entities, but by their aftermath. The significance and the implications of these milestones in history are determined by every single one of us.
Perhaps we were too young to understand the technicalities of the death of Princess Diana or the anguish of the victims in the World Trade Center collapsing to the ground but we nevertheless felt an empathy untainted by premonitions. Let us not be wounded by the sharp knives of ignorance or the metaphorical blasts of hostility. Let us not become captives of bureaucracy. The future text of the history books waits so let’s give the future contributors to our society something to read about.
Sofiya Mahdi is a freshman at the College of Arts and Sciences and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at soifya218@gmail.com.
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