Osama is just the mascot

MUZAMIL JALEEL

AS the world mourns the innocent victims of the World Trade Centre attacks, it is also being prepared for the first war of the 21st century. A war against international terrorism. And the target is Osama bin Laden, the Saudi fugitive and his Al Qaida conglomerate of Islamic militant outfits around the globe.

The Americans might well get Osama’s head and they might even manage to ‘‘bomb Afghanistan back to the stone age’’, given the unprecedented support extended by the international community, especially Pakistan’s military regime. It will definitely assuage the injured American pride, but will this solve the real problem? Who is Osama bin Laden? How did he manage to strike at America’s economic heart and defence nerve centre? Who are these suicide bombers? And what is this war all about?

A military strike against Afghanistan — or even the death of Osama bin Laden — would actually be counter-productive. Islamic militancy does not need any bin Ladens. It is a psyche which has its roots not in Islamic fundamentalism but somewhere else, although it only grows amidst religious fanaticism. It is the result of a politics of oppression and suppression. Though we are being constantly told that it is a war between ‘‘terror’’ and ‘‘democracy’’, it is really much more than that. It certainly has its roots in the double standards of the democracies of the world.

Noam Chomsky has chosen to describe it in the words of a distinguished reporter, Robert Fisk, who described the psyche of the attackers as ‘‘the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people’’. Fisk, however, believes that it is not just a struggle between democracy and terror — ‘‘it is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into Lebanese ambulances in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia — paid and uniformed by America’s Israeli ally — hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps’’. Chomsky concludes that ‘‘again, we have a choice: we may try to understand, or refuse to do so, contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead’’.

Michael Moore makes another relevant point: ‘‘The pundits are... gushing on about the ‘terrorist threat’ and today’s scariest dude on planet earth — Osama bin Laden... I have heard everything about this bin Laden guy except this one fact — we created the monster known as Osama bin Laden! Where did he go to a terrorist school? At the CIA!’’

If America — or for that matter, the entire civilised world — bombs Afghanistan for ‘‘harbouring bin Laden’’ and even kills him, will it end there? Bin Laden is the symptom of a disease which has been left unaddressed. It is true in Afghanistan. It is true in Palestine. And it is true in Kashmir. Unless and until political uncertainties and the circumstances in which religious fanaticism thrives are not addressed, we will see the birth of many more Osamas.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell says bin Laden’s Al Qaida coordinates terror across 34 countries and the network has to be neutralised. According to a recent backgrounder in The Washington Post, Al Qaida operates cells in far-flung regions, but Kashmir finds no mention in this list. It is clear that no jehadi organisation operating in the Valley has direct links with Osama. But he certainly serves as a source of inspiration. Osama, in fact, is emerging as a mascot of Islamic militancy and it hardly matters whether he is physically involved or not. A dead Osama could inspire just as effectively, if not more. A dead Osama, a dramatically mythified Osama could actually be more dangerous.

We still remember a Class 12 student, Afaaq Ahmad, from a middle class, educated family from downtown Srinagar. He rammed into the main entrance of the army’s highly guarded 15 Corps headquarters with an explosive-laden car and blew himself up into pieces. On an average, there have been five suicide attacks every month in Kashmir for the last 18 months. The difference between Al Qaida and the Lashkar-e-Toiba is just in the execution of the suicide missions.

But what should be the response? This new trend cannot be addressed by destroying the militant camps but by filling the political vacuum which nurtures such a fanatic mentality.