Between bin Laden and Guevara

I believe the last time there was real dialogue about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida was years ago. It has probably been the same amount of time since there was any valuable media coverage. Indeed, the people around the world have forgotten the story of bin Laden, probably years ago. Today, in light of the bloody and provocative events in the world, especially in our Arab region, the news of bin Laden’s death leaves us in the hands of American special forces in Pakistan, and at the speed of light, the entire world was left to talk about him again through its media channels.

This is not to say that it is an American trick. If it was I who troubled myself to turn to this idea, then America proved to us that it is the undisputed master of deception, games and dual agendas. I am impressed more and more by the power of media hacks to guide. It is not just the world’s general view toward the subject that they want, when they want it, and in the form they want, but also the overwhelming, amazing power to program the minds of people of all walks of life.

When America killed bin Laden today, that piece of news really proved this, especially since some still say the opposite is true — far from the analysis needed by President Obama to mobilize and to restore the popularity he lost from his inability to accomplish anything convincing to the American people and his waning opportunity for a second term. If they — namely America — had sought to kill this man to achieve a moral victory in the battle they were losing throughout the past years in the “War on Terror,” as they like to call it, then a living, surviving bin Laden was a disgrace. Throughout that time, it was a shame to look at him, like a bleeding wound, and face the people, so what happened today brought great joy.

Today however, as we knew throughout the long years, in which we followed the story in the Western media rather than the Arab media, bin Laden was not the mastermind of al-Qaida, but rather the spiritual and symbolic leader of the organization, which had become several factional organizations in reality, with their own masterminds. We have also come to find out that these organizations are not financially linked to bin Laden alone; rather, the financial workings, which America tried to strangle and take down over the past years, are quite complex. Thus, bin Laden’s physical death is really just the death of one person, not the death of al-Qaida as a whole.

I say this because bin Laden is no longer just a person today, but he became an idea, an idea for those who understand the philosophical meaning of something as being greater than all thought. The idea is always the maker of thought. The idea is a gleam of light. It is the burning spark from which thought is reproduced in various forms, breeding hundreds of groups, movements, and emotions from the far right to the far left, between true pacifism and devastating destruction.

Che Guevara, the Argentine doctor and rebel fighter, became a symbol for all struggles, revolutions and acts in the face of tyranny. We see his image worn on hands and chests as a symbol in the East and the West by people who may not agree with his ideas and his platform. Nevertheless, they are symbols and connotations, which have intensified over the years in the image and name of this person. Has America, in killing Osama bin Laden, knocked over the first of a series of dominoes leading to an industry of new symbols of revolution and struggle? Is it the symbol of a fighter, who sold all the joys of the world and stood steadfast and tirelessly throughout the years in his opposition against America?

Has America, by killing bin Laden, inspired the smoldering embers beneath the ashes of al-Qaida? Thereby psychologically, ideologically and militarily inflaming it once again? These questions will be answered in the coming days.