The world sulked in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death. There is confusion as to what one should get from it. The ideology of killing is too primitive for a modern man to exult in it or get inspiration from it. So the “euphoria of victory” or the “anger of defeat” quickly gives way to the business of living in most part of the world. However, the appendage of the “reality of killings” in Today’s world is unmistakably a curse on humanity that keeps its shadow just nearby. When mass killings are unabated in deprivation, poverty and natural disaster, gruesome physicality of killings by human is meaningless.

“Idea of killings” is deep rooted and well entrenched. Ajmal Kasab, who had killed people randomly on the street in Mumbai about two and half years back (26/11), is in Arthur’s Jail of Mumbai. When he heard about the death of Bin Laden from the guards, he reportedly said, "Jihad me uski jaan gayi" (Osama died during jihad). He is certainly not the only human of this belief.

The world, as one can recall, has always faced ideological divide. This has been a ongoing phenomenon with one ideology substituting another while new ideology is taking shape. “Idea of killings”, therefore, has its nemesis, if there is one, in another idea only. Egypt is at the epicenter of this possible course. "Bin Laden died in Egypt before he was killed in Pakistan," said Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at Emirates University. No doubt, this observation is just too premature. The progression of events in Egypt and Syria and its fall out vis-à-vis Israel will determine a great deal about the meaning of Bin Laden’s death on a longer horizon.

Whatever be the source of violence, the human development is the ultimate victim. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of USA (1933–1945), would have never imagined that his saying in thirties of the previous century would so appropriately describe the world today when he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." Japan, for example, knows this greatest fear of natural violence better than any other country in the world. The silver lining, however, is its spirit, which gives us the hope that there is indeed light ahead of the darkness.