'Osamaism' may only grow in strength

By Kesava Menon

MANAMA (BAHRAIN), OCT. 8. The U.S.-led coalition may destroy the Taliban and kill Osama bin Laden but Osamaism is likely to live on. That clearly was the hope underlying the message delivered by the Al Qaeda leadership via an Al Jazeera telecast a few hours before the start of the bombing campaign yesterday.

In the statements that they read out before the video cameras, Osama and his associates recited the litany of grievances that the Arab part of the Muslim world harboured against the West. In the concluding sentence of his prepared statement, Osama said, ``I swear to God that America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of infidels depart the land of Mohammed, peace be upon him.'' Elsewhere too, he spoke of the injustices that the Arab world has suffered in the past 80 years (probably an allusion to the Sykes- Picot agreement at the end of World War I in which the West demarcated the political geography of West Asia). But it will be a mistake to think that Osama envisages that his movement will come to an end once these grievances are redressed.

There is a powerful subliminal text contained in the message. From the language used, the allusions made and the setting in which the message was recorded, it was evident that the Al Qaeda leadership was working a vibrant and deep-seated cultural chord. It is a world view that sees the forces of corruption, oppression, hypocrisy and despotism as being rampant.

The litany of injustices is meant to illustrate this state of being and is not to be confused with a political agenda that has to be addressed. Osama's message is that this state of being must be destroyed by rallying behind the ``group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam to destroy America.''

Osama did not have to make specific comparisons between the conditions of the world today and the state of the Arab peninsula at the dawn of the Islamic era.

The setting provided allusions in plenty. To state the unstated, the subliminal message was as follows: ``Here are a group of men - strong in faith - who are being hounded by the oppressing unbelievers, who have been deserted by those who paid only lip service to the faith and who have been exiled by their own people''.

There was no need for Osama to go further and remind his targeted audience that a similar band of men launched Islam on its triumphal march a little over 1,400 hundred years ago.

The language used and the history of the jehadi movement suggest that the conclusions drawn above do not amount to an excessive interpretation of Osama's message.

The statement draws a clear contrast between the ``international infidels'' and the ``modern world's symbol of paganism'' on the one hand and ``the group that refuses to be subdued in its religion on the other''.

Recent events are said to have divided the world into two camps, the camp of the infidels and the camp of the faithful. ``Every Muslim must rise to defend his religion.

The wind of faith is blowing and the wind of change is blowing to remove the evil from the Peninsula of Mohammed, peace be upon him,'' Osama exhorted his audience.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : New strides in cancer treatment