Osama's Razor

In the week following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Gary Weddle, a teacher from Washington, vowed he would not shave his beard until Osama bin Laden was either arrested or killed. He thought he would have to keep his stubble for a few days or up to a month. After 3,454 days of patient waiting, Weddle finally grabbed the scissors at 7:50 p.m. on Sunday, just moments after President Obama officially announced that terrorist number one was dead.

The surprise that came from Pakistan obliterated the memory of the London royal wedding, which, only two days earlier, reigned supreme in U.S. news. Even the terrifying tornadoes in the southern parts of the country disappeared from the news reports (mirroring the way the atmospheric fronts that had caused them dispersed), despite the unheard-of-for-decades material damages and deaths they brought. The end of Osama came like the resolution of a Western, fitting extremely well into the popular expectations of Americans. It’s no accident that crowds of people flooded the streets of Washington, D.C. and New York City immediately after the president’s speech. They were chanting, “U.S.A., U.S.A.” Televisions showed copious feeds of the festivities. I, myself, can confirm that the excitement was genuine and even contagious. Few were those who remained indifferent, although not everyone treated the event with patriotic approval. In the meantime, the street merchants were enthusiastically selling American flags of all sizes, priced from $3 to $30.

A television station in the capital city of California, Sacramento, mistakenly broadcast the caption, “Obama bin Laden is dead.” As this was a Fox television station, Fox being the conservative channel, some people announced that the slip seemed quite Freudian to them.

Also, isn’t it ironic that one of the reasons bin Laden’s big residence in Abbottabad became suspicious in the first place was that it had no telephone or Internet connection? It seems that in the Facebook era, even terrorists need to have online friends in order to avoid questions. Okay, I admit I’m simplifying things: Working out Osama’s location took at least four years, the first clue being information obtained from a Guantanamo camper. More details about the military operation will be made public as deemed appropriate.

On the whole, however, I am not the only one wondering what the effect of this event will be. A talking head said that Osama bin Laden’s death didn’t change a thing. Another one retorted that the War Against Terror (as Bush effectively and quite meaninglessly called it) was won, the end. Still others took the central position between these two extreme points of view. And so it goes, from Sunday on, for while no reliable prediction can be made, the abundant television time needs to be filled. President Obama announced that the world was a safer place now. Amen — but I don’t believe him. I am aware that he’s living the apogee of his social service career right now, nevertheless.

I heard one of bin Laden’s daughters-in-law saying, on CNN, that Osama had been a good Muslim. Then she proceeded to congratulate the Americans, saying that she shared in their happiness. The poor woman — she’s been living in the U.S. for a long time. She even changed her family name to bin Ladin. The journalists, however, succeeded in locating her and put her in front of the cameras. Thus, she unwittingly expressed the ambivalence and confusion felt by the Muslim world.

It was also interesting to observe the reaction of American kids to this event. The news about the earthquakes in Japan and the tsunami they caused almost magnetically attracted the 12- and 13-year-olds, who otherwise primarily learn the news on Facebook. Apparently, Osama bin Laden’s death has the ostensible clarity of a natural disaster, for the interest is enormous. The adolescents react to the event as if they had just watched a movie, at the end of which the bad guy got what he deserved. As for the adults, let them argue if this event should be attributed to Obama or Bush, or whether bin Laden is really dead.

Weddle’s wife told the media that her freshly-shaven, 50-year-old husband now looked 10 years younger. I suddenly had the somewhat malicious urge to tell her that in the photo before the shaving he at least looked like a rock dinosaur from ZZ Top, while now he was just a math teacher. And then, it dawned on me that the death of bin Laden might have a similar, supposedly rejuvenating effect on the U.S.

The Americans are trying to shake off the burden of the last 10 years. I hope it’s not only the razor sellers who will benefit from that.