America’s Assassination of bin Laden Makes Him a Hero and Deepens Rift between Islamic World and the West

The announcement of the assassination of the leader of the al-Qaida organization, Osama bin Laden — provided the American narrative is to be believed — has shed light upon the shape and nature of the true relationship between the Muslims and the Arabs on the one hand, and the West and most specifically the United States on the other hand.

A glance at the reactions of Arab and Islamic peoples to the killing of bin Laden will immediately reveal that the chasm of discord between the Muslims and the United States remains wide, and that the Muslim and Arab view of America appears not to have been altered by the recent revolutions of the Arab peoples against their leaders. Indeed, this chasm was widened by the White House’s announcement concerning its intention to bury bin Laden at sea. Afterward came strong objections from authoritative Islamic agencies — most weighty among them Al-Azhar and Dar al-Ifta — to this operation, arguing that dumping his body into the waters of the ocean communicated a contempt on the part of American officials for the dignity of death as well as a disregard for the Islamic shariah.

Number One Martyr

The reactions of the Islamic and Arab peoples were marked by a mixture of astonishment and sadness. In Afghanistan — that country which has suffered for more than a decade because of the American war against what has been called terrorism — bin Laden has been described following his death as the “number one martyr.”

In the city of Qandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban movement, a bearded man requesting anonymity said to Reuters, “Now he is the number one martyr for al-Qaida because he is stronger dead than alive.” He added, “Now he will become a fire that Muslims will follow for generations.” Meanwhile, another man from Qandahar said, “Bin Laden's death doesn't matter because al Qaeda is more than him and it's a big idea now.” Afghan officials have also expressed their belief that bin Laden will continue to be influential, and some have suggested that the organization will attempt to avenge his death.

Meanwhile, in Egypt — and this is one of the countries transformed by the revolution of the Arab people against their rulers — the reaction of the Egyptians has not differed from the reaction of their counterparts in Afghanistan. According to Dr. Nasr Farid Wasel, former Mufti of the republic and member of the Islamic Research Academy, “The Islamic ruling on Osama bin Laden is that he is a martyr for being killed by the hand of the enemy.”

As was clear from most of the comments made by Facebook users and readers of news websites, the majority tend to consider bin Laden a martyr and a mujahid, whereas only a few commenters see him as a terrorist. Among the most remarkable comments were those pronouncing that bin Laden did not die and that there are a million bin Ladens. A number of phrases were repeated again and again — e.g., that he lived a hero and died a hero. Perhaps the most affecting or influential of the comments was that “he died terrorizing the terrorists.”

Meanwhile, as for Jordan — and this is one of the countries allied with the United States in its war against what has been called terrorism — activists of the Salafi-Jihadist movement have congratulated the Islamic ummah for the “martyrdom of Sheikh Osama bin Laden” while the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood has said that bin Laden died on the path that he chose, adding that “He knows of his ultimate end and of the cost of confrontation and resistance against America and its dictator allies in the region.”

A New Era in the Arab World

These are some of the reactions of people in countries considered allies of the United States, and they do not differ greatly from those in other Arab and Muslim countries. These reactions reveal numerous reasons for tense relations between the Muslims and the Arabs on the one hand and the United States on the other hand. What is strange is that the Americans have not yet realized that the solution is not the killing of bin Laden and other leaders of al-Qaida but rather the cessation of aggression and hostility against Islamic leaders and the blind bias toward the Zionist entity.

The Americans should realize that the killing of bin Laden is not as significant as the American administration presumes it to be, and that bin Laden had long since lost the following and the attention he had previously enjoyed. As the distinguished British journalist Robert Fisk has pointed out, the democratic revolution and renaissance currently happening in the Arab world, as millions of Muslims rid themselves of their rulers, is far more important than the killing of a middle-aged man in the mountains of Pakistan.

And so it is imperative for America to realize that a new era has begun in the Arab and Islamic worlds. The era of bin Laden and his associates has been succeeded by the era of Mohamed Bouazizi and Khaled Said, an era in which the degree of the schism between the United States and the Muslims — in contrast to expectations — is great indeed, as demonstrated by the reactions of the Arab and Islamic peoples to the killing of bin Laden.

Remarkable here is the use of social networking sites by Arab youths, the same sites which played a role in the Arab revolutions, to express their anger toward American policy in the Arab and Islamic worlds. In the manner of “We Are All Khaled Said,” many new Facebook groups have appeared bearing the name “We Are All the Martyr Osama bin Laden.” These pages have considered bin Laden a martyr for defending Islam and confronting its enemies, particularly America and Israel, and have called for demonstrations in front of American embassies. Will such pages mark the beginning of the fall of the American empire at the hands of the youth of the new Arab era, just as they were able to help conquer tyranny in their own countries? Or has America learned a lesson from the experience of the Arab Spring and finally realized that the current transformations are not in its favor, and that it should change its policies regarding the many issues which have stirred up Arab and Muslim anger, chief among them most certainly being the Arab-Israeli conflict?