Bin Laden "killed" by the Jasmine Revolution
“The war on terrorism is not over yet”, all world leaders said. Indeed, US security forces are hard at work both at home and abroad to prevent possible attacks against US embassies and interests.
We cannot lower our guard. Our brothers and sisters in Pakistan and Iraq know that very well. In the past few years, al Qaeda has caused them to shed much blood and tears.
Mgr Saldanha, archbishop emeritus of Lahore, said that given the situation Christians are an “easy target” for those who want to start a war with religious connotations between the (Islamic) East and the (so-called) Christian West.
Church sources in Iraq told AsiaNews the same thing. “Bin Laden created a school,” they noted, as well as “a generation indoctrinated by him”, one that wants to eliminate everything that does not fit to a “medieval” vision of Islam.
Caution however is de rigueur. Despite concerns over future developments, we must acknowledge that there has been no show of hatred, no flags burnt, no hanging in effigy like in previous cases of East-West confrontation.
Except for a few incidents in Quetta and Karachi (Pakistan), calls for revenge on the Internet and a disturbing statement by Hamas, the prevailing attitude among Muslim fundamentalists appears to be one of fatigue. More specifically, it appears that the Muslim world has distanced itself from heroes on horseback or hiding in Afghan mountain caves.
A survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted a few weeks before the death of Bin Laden, was released with great timing yesterday. It shows that among Muslims support for al Qaeda has inexorably declined in recent years.
Among the Muslim nations surveyed, Bin Laden received the highest level of support in the Palestinian territories with 34 per cent (against 57 per cent in 2005 and 72 per cent in 2003). In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, positive views for the terrorist leader dropped from 59 per cent in 2003 to 26 per cent in 2011; in Egypt it now stands at 22 per cent (down from 27 per cent in 2006), support in Jordan went from 56 per cent in 2003 to 13 per cent in 2011. In “secular” nations like Turkey, it went from19 per cent (2003) to 3 per cent (2011), in Lebanon, it dropped from 19 per cent (2003) to 1 per cent today.
Even in Pakistan, a country under great Taliban pressure, support has dropped to 18 per cent (in 2010, data for 2011 are not yet available) against 46 per cent in 2003.
In all these countries, favourable views for Qaeda do not exceed 20 per cent (with lows of 5 and 2 per cent respectively in Turkey and Lebanon), with negative views of the terrorist organisation averaging 60-65.
The terrorist actions carried out by Bin Laden and company are the reason for this low support since they killed thousands of Muslims. Likewise, Islam itself has come in for some of the harshest criticism because of al Qaeda’s terror. “He actually harmed Islam more than anyone else,” a Muslim man in Cairo.
“The harm inflicted by Osama Bin Laden to the image of Islam and Arab causes is equal to the harm inflicted by the enemies to the causes of Muslims everywhere,” Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said. For him, Bin Laden “represented over two consecutive decades a black mark in this history” because he “introduced the culture of killing, terrorism, destruction and sabotage in to minds of thousands of youths.”
However, young people are also the ones who have done more to change this, by undermining Bin Laden’s influence. Back in December, non-violent and multi-confessional demonstrations began in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. They successfully brought down Middle Eastern dictators through democratic action, not terrorism.
These young men and women do not want a caliphate from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic, but rather a system that would allow them to contribute to the common good of their nations, not through obedience to religious or military rulers, but through consent to the elected representatives of the people.
Whilst Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood might try to limit “damages” to their cause by questioning young people’s representativeness; the latter, the same who carried the ‘Jasmine Revolution’ forward, continue to promote an all-inclusive form of citizenship (for Christians and Muslims). Instead of submitting to groupthink, they also insist that everyone have the possibility to think by and for themselves, open to dialogue and exchanges, all of which is either unknown to or rejected by al Qaeda and its world.
In a certain way, even before the US carried out its operation, Bin Laden had already lost the Muslim world.
For this reason, in our humble opinion, the struggle against terrorism cannot limit itself to military actions or tighter security, but must include friendship and support for these young people, through economic and cultural aid and cooperation.
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