When Osama bin Laden’s messages to the world appeared it annoyed me that the media fixated upon two things: was this message genuine? plus one or two statements from the message which sounded suitably inflammatory. Where could I read the complete messages for myself and come to my own understanding and conclusions about this man and what he had to say. If I cannot trust my political leaders over Middle East wars or global economic affairs, I certainly have no reason to trust what they have to repeat about this particular individual.
I found a publication called “Messages to the world: the statements of Osama bin Laden”, published in 2005 by Verso, and edited by Bruce Lawrence. These statements cover the period from 1994 to 2004 when he lived in Sudan, Khurasan and Afghanistan and include the events of 9/11 and the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.
Let us get 9/11 out of the way. Does he take responsibility for it? Apparently not. As time passes he becomes more ambiguous, but initially it seems clear enough that he has no planning role in the operation. He applauds the actions of those who undertake it. For it is about time that America begins to feel the pain.
What kind of a person emerges? Do I respect him? Well, compared to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair and Obama, yes, I do. He is intelligent and uses his intelligence to understand and articulate the predicament Muslims find themselves in. He is reasonable and tries to make us see this predicament and the response to it. He is obviously courageous in his response to the predicament: in resistance, in battle and in breaking ranks and criticising corrupt Arab governments. He possesses a genuine spiritual mana – and this is a key factor.
It is the profound lack of spiritual knowledge and stature in his adversaries which fills Osama bin Laden with contempt. We are once again the crusading barbarians who invade the more civilised world of Islam.
Even if I drop the word “invade” and just speak of an increasingly aggressive Western interference in the Middle East over a long period of time, this poses a problem for any conscious Muslim. If you are unconscious, then no problem. But if you are conscious you have two choices, no matter how you pretend otherwise: resist or collaborate. Without having to put our lives on the line yet, we have the same choice.
Osama bin Laden is no socialist. He will not become an icon for youth in the West like Che Guevara, but he is nevertheless the resistance icon of our time. The foe is the same. It does not help that youth of the West are the product of forty more years of education in conformity and unconsciousness. How free-minded we seemed to be in 1968!
So a good deal of Osama bin Laden’s messages contain increasingly severe criticism of Muslim collaborators. These may be the rulers who ineffectually protest US/Israeli aggression while secretly allowing use of their territory, and effectively doing nothing. They include the official Muslim scholars in high places who make religious pronouncements of appeasement in the name of peace. They include the Palestinian Authority which does nothing while its people are forced out of their homes or are having to fight for their lives and land as the apartheid Wall goes up.
For bin Laden there is no peace without justice and freedom from foreign oppression. (To use an idiot phrase, it’s not rocket science, is it?) But it is the kind of obvious thing that he wants us to see and accept. The kind of obvious thing that our media, full of educated people, does not want to report.
A primary point that Osama bin Laden wishes to make is this: people from overseas come to our lands and terrorise us with interference, control and massacre, and if we resist they call us terrorists. American (and Israeli) military kill and mutilate civilians with sophisticated weaponry in any Muslim land they choose, and this is the initial terrorism. He asks the question: what, for example, has Australia, way down in the south of the world, got to do with Afghanistan?
When I last saw a programme about our own New Zealand troops in Afghanistan, I had to stop and try to remember why we were there. Oh yes, we were pretending to be helpful. But this has now moved on. Someone in a Muslim country blows up a hotel for the rich and the free which includes a New Zealander among the victims. The New Zealand prime minister states that such a random outcome gives New Zealand reason to increase its commitment to Afghanistan. How can you deal with such a man?
The main document, in my view, which ought to be required reading, is the letter To The Americans of October 6 2002. In this Osama bin Laden explains why he is fighting, and he describes the sick nature of American civilization, and in doing so indicates the remedies. It is guaranteed to enrage the materialistic liberal and humanist. And this is why in the West we have a liberal defence of the murder being pursued in Muslim countries. Our Left and Right divisions have become one.
I do not like spirituality which transfers into institutional religious fundamentalism. It is medieval in any country. However, there appears to be only one way in which the West can gain the respect of genuine leaders in the East and the acceptance of the people of the East; and that is by having a more “spiritual” civilization.
Unfortunately, what Osama bin Laden says today about America and its allies is all too true. We are a civilization “which does not understand the language of manners and principles” and we refuse to reflect upon why 9/11 happened (or could have happened). If Americans could become a people of manners and principles “you may be freed from the self-deception that you are a great nation, the self-deception your leaders spread amongst you to conceal from you the despicable state that you have reached”.
