http://blog.nj.com/njv_john_farmer/2011/05/osama_bin_ladens_anger_was_sha.ht ml
Osama bin Laden's anger was shared, but not his approach Published: Sunday, May 15, 2011, 6:21 AM <http://connect.nj.com/user/njojfarmer/index.html> John Farmer/The Star-LedgerBy <http://connect.nj.com/user/njojfarmer/index.html> John Farmer/The Star-Ledger The Star-Ledger Osama bin Laden is gone now, but the search for what lasting meaning, if any, his life had, for what will follow in his wake and, even more interesting, for why he did what he did has only just begun. Bin Laden was defined by his virulent hatreds - of the despots who've dominated the Arab Middle East for a century; for Israel and the West, especially the United States; for capitalism and communism; and, at bottom, for modernity itself. His hatred was comprehensive; nothing escaped it. But those hatreds were the tip of bin Laden's personal iceberg. What drove him to such violence was more likely something else, something that made him relevant to more of the Arab world than just al Qaeda and other terrorists. It was centuries of Arab humiliation, mostly at the hands of the West, as bin Laden saw it. The Arab world bin Laden was born into - and despised - was a creation of the West. The nations of the Middle East today were fashioned by the victors of World War I, mainly the British and French, out of the old Ottoman Empire - whether they liked it or not. Moreover, it was Western technology and investment that developed the region's oil riches - and incidentally gave rise to the despotic dynasties bin Laden hated. Moreover, it was the Western powers of Europe that carved a Jewish homeland out of Palestine, and American wealth that early on sustained Israel financially. He had a real beef with the West, bin Laden did. But he wasn't the only Arab who felt that way, which is what made him dangerous. Bin Laden was a student of history with enough background to know that a millennium ago the Islamic Arab world boasted the most advanced and powerful civilization on Earth. The caliphate, as he liked to recall, stretched across North Africa and even into parts of Europe and led the way in science and learning. It's that caliphate bin Laden dreamed so grandiosely of restoring, of reversing the centuries of Arab Islamic decline, and of punishing - even pauperizing - the West. New York and the Twin Towers symbolized all he hated most of the West - and seems, in the end, to have envied. It's a nice bit of irony that the wealth, power and influence symbolized by New York and the Towers are exactly what bin Laden wanted for his caliphate. The man was a catalogue of contradictions, some only now coming to life with the photos, laptops, hard drives and other digital storage devices taken from his concrete compound by his Navy SEAL slayers. No aesthete, bin Laden was fond of scrolling back and forth through television images of himself. His ego and his idea of his role in the world were large - not unusual in so messianic a personality. And for all his professed distaste for modernity, he was fascinated by the electronic gadgetry of the age. He knew how to use it and when not to, for fear it would lead his Western pursuers to his lair, as it eventually did. The other contradiction in bin Laden is that, for all his evident intelligence and determination to lead an Arab revival, he missed the unrest swirling beneath the surface that energized young Arabs - women as well as men - and produced the "Arab Spring." Like bin Laden, they too resented the despotic politics under which they lived. But while sharing his anger, they yearned not for the caliphate and its theocratic rule. They seem instead to want something like the politics of the West - maybe not American-style democracy, but a government that allows, in some form, popular participation in the choice of leaders and the formation of policy. In failing to sense this underlying mood, bin Laden blew it. It's too early for any definitive determination of bin Laden's place in modern history - whether as a messianic madman, a popular view in the West, or something more significant. That's for scholars to determine. But the grievance he exploited - though not the remedy he favored - is widely shared in the Arab world and will have to be addressed if stability and a lasting peace are ever to come to the Middle East. And the wider world as well. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [email protected]. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [email protected] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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