Writing an epitaph to Osama bin Laden****
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Enayet Rasul Bhuiyan
"Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan." So said, John F Kennedy, the most celebrated US President of the twentieth century. What is the underlying meaning of this comment ? It is that one who ultimately holds sway or wins the day, all can be expected to congratulate and welcome that person. This is a fact and part of life. Winners are warmly received even by their one time doubters or viliffiers . The victor, by his victory, establishes all truths on his side. It is human nature to applaud the victor and fall in line with him. The vanquished is a spent force. No one stands to gain from crying for him or cheering for him. Thus, it is practical or more sensible to support the winner and not the loser. Like humans, the same go for states or institutions. The triumphant state or force almost impulsively draws support from the sheer act of winning. For example, the first world war was the collective responsibility of all belligerent European nations and the USA. All were to be blamed for its happening that took a colossal toll on human lives and resources. The imperialist ambitions and imperial interests of European countries on both sides led to this most devastating conflict. But the side that won the war could pin the guilt for it, totally, on Germany alone. Through the Versailles Treaty, the winners of World War I could force everything unfair on a defeated Germany in accordance with their whims and hatreds. None in the world then deemed it fit to raise a hand in support of Germany. That is what John Kennedy meant by saying that no one weeps for the defeated one or stretches out the helping hand. The vanquished become like a pariah or an orphan to be bypassed and damned. Another famous observation from John F Kennedy was : "One nation's hero is another nation's goon " meaning that a person or institution can be a revered or considered as a heroic figure or body respectively in one country. But the same person can be visualized as nothing but a sheer rogue or terrorist element in another country. It all depends on which side of the fence the person or institution stands. Last week's slaying of Osama bin Laden by special US forces in Pakistan brings up this classic problem of perception : whether the deceased is a hero or villain, a martyr or an abominable offender ? To people in US generally and in most other western countries, the demise of Osama bin Laden marked the end of the career of a dangerous terrorist the like of whom was not seen in the contemporary world. To others in the Islamic world, Laden has been a valiant fighter for Islam and Muslim peoples who suffered very greatly in physical terms to uphold his cause. Thus, the insight of Kennedy's comment applies in his case very appropriately. The man who was shot in the US last week by US navy commandos was insensitively handled by them as in their perception he was the most despised terrorist who blew up the World Trade Centre ands caused the loss of many US lives including the lives of innocent and ordinary US citizens. But to Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq , Pakistan and other parts of the world who were the sad targets of brutal US interventions, Osama's memory might go on being haloed as a legendary warrior against mainly US led western imperialism. In the USA and in the West in general , Osama is sought to be portrayed as directly responsible for causing so many deaths of innocent persons and destruction of properties and drain of resources. But the USA and Western countries can be also blamed in a similar manner. Indeed, the allegation has been made not unjustifiably against the USA and its allies for invading Iraq and killing hundreds of thousands of its otherwise innocent people, reducing to rubble that country's infrastructures ( utility services in Iraq remain deficient in Iraq long after the US invasion), making life and living dangerously insecure for Iraqis, all the time. The main pretext for invading Iraq was that it was producing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) against UN warnings. But this proved simply a bogey to pave the ground for invasion. Later on the US and its allies could provide no evidence that Iraq actually attempted to produce such WMDs. For invading Iraq on the basis of only assumptions that proved to be entirely a nonsense and raining deaths and destructions on that country thereof, the US and its allied countries can be accused for indulging in state sponsored terrorism on a very large scale. But who would bell the cat ? Not only in Iraq, the excesses committed by US and NATO forces in the course of their so called fight against terrorists in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of the world, also happen to be no better than expressions of naked terrorism to the great suffering of the victims of such acts. Let us also look to the other side of the Laden story. He has done great wrong in the eyes of the US and its friends. But he was the very darling of the US and Western countries when in the height of the Cold War, Laden and his warriors fought so heroically to force the retreat of the forces of the erstwhile Soviet Union from Afghanistan. The US would now like to conveniently forget that side of Laden and how much they owed to him for defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan, only to stress on the recent state of their relationships with him. But the assessment of a person like Laden needs to be made more comprehensively in all fairness. Laden was born with a golden spoon in his mouth. The scion of one of Saudi Arabia's richest families, he could easily lead a luxurious life of comfort and sensual gratification. But he deliberately led a life of grim struggle in deserts and mountains, in hideouts amid the most thorough dragnets of the world's most powerful secret service agencies, while taking up arms against first the world's second superpower and then the first one believing in his ideology and cause for Islamic peoples. These self sacrificing qualities are also not to be so easily disregarded. Therefore, as I said, it is difficult to write an epitaph of a man who presented such a split image to the world.
"Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan." So said, John F Kennedy, the most celebrated US President of the twentieth century. What is the underlying meaning of this comment ? It is that one who ultimately holds sway or wins the day, all can be expected to congratulate and welcome that person. This is a fact and part of life. Winners are warmly received even by their one time doubters or viliffiers . The victor, by his victory, establishes all truths on his side. It is human nature to applaud the victor and fall in line with him. The vanquished is a spent force. No one stands to gain from crying for him or cheering for him. Thus, it is practical or more sensible to support the winner and not the loser. Like humans, the same go for states or institutions. The triumphant state or force almost impulsively draws support from the sheer act of winning. For example, the first world war was the collective responsibility of all belligerent European nations and the USA. All were to be blamed for its happening that took a colossal toll on human lives and resources. The imperialist ambitions and imperial interests of European countries on both sides led to this most devastating conflict. But the side that won the war could pin the guilt for it, totally, on Germany alone. Through the Versailles Treaty, the winners of World War I could force everything unfair on a defeated Germany in accordance with their whims and hatreds. None in the world then deemed it fit to raise a hand in support of Germany. That is what John Kennedy meant by saying that no one weeps for the defeated one or stretches out the helping hand. The vanquished become like a pariah or an orphan to be bypassed and damned. Another famous observation from John F Kennedy was : "One nation's hero is another nation's goon " meaning that a person or institution can be a revered or considered as a heroic figure or body respectively in one country. But the same person can be visualized as nothing but a sheer rogue or terrorist element in another country. It all depends on which side of the fence the person or institution stands. Last week's slaying of Osama bin Laden by special US forces in Pakistan brings up this classic problem of perception : whether the deceased is a hero or villain, a martyr or an abominable offender ? To people in US generally and in most other western countries, the demise of Osama bin Laden marked the end of the career of a dangerous terrorist the like of whom was not seen in the contemporary world. To others in the Islamic world, Laden has been a valiant fighter for Islam and Muslim peoples who suffered very greatly in physical terms to uphold his cause. Thus, the insight of Kennedy's comment applies in his case very appropriately. The man who was shot in the US last week by US navy commandos was insensitively handled by them as in their perception he was the most despised terrorist who blew up the World Trade Centre ands caused the loss of many US lives including the lives of innocent and ordinary US citizens. But to Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq , Pakistan and other parts of the world who were the sad targets of brutal US interventions, Osama's memory might go on being haloed as a legendary warrior against mainly US led western imperialism. In the USA and in the West in general , Osama is sought to be portrayed as directly responsible for causing so many deaths of innocent persons and destruction of properties and drain of resources. But the USA and Western countries can be also blamed in a similar manner. Indeed, the allegation has been made not unjustifiably against the USA and its allies for invading Iraq and killing hundreds of thousands of its otherwise innocent people, reducing to rubble that country's infrastructures ( utility services in Iraq remain deficient in Iraq long after the US invasion), making life and living dangerously insecure for Iraqis, all the time. The main pretext for invading Iraq was that it was producing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) against UN warnings. But this proved simply a bogey to pave the ground for invasion. Later on the US and its allies could provide no evidence that Iraq actually attempted to produce such WMDs. For invading Iraq on the basis of only assumptions that proved to be entirely a nonsense and raining deaths and destructions on that country thereof, the US and its allied countries can be accused for indulging in state sponsored terrorism on a very large scale. But who would bell the cat ? Not only in Iraq, the excesses committed by US and NATO forces in the course of their so called fight against terrorists in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of the world, also happen to be no better than expressions of naked terrorism to the great suffering of the victims of such acts. Let us also look to the other side of the Laden story. He has done great wrong in the eyes of the US and its friends. But he was the very darling of the US and Western countries when in the height of the Cold War, Laden and his warriors fought so heroically to force the retreat of the forces of the erstwhile Soviet Union from Afghanistan. The US would now like to conveniently forget that side of Laden and how much they owed to him for defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan, only to stress on the recent state of their relationships with him. But the assessment of a person like Laden needs to be made more comprehensively in all fairness. Laden was born with a golden spoon in his mouth. The scion of one of Saudi Arabia's richest families, he could easily lead a luxurious life of comfort and sensual gratification. But he deliberately led a life of grim struggle in deserts and mountains, in hideouts amid the most thorough dragnets of the world's most powerful secret service agencies, while taking up arms against first the world's second superpower and then the first one believing in his ideology and cause for Islamic peoples. These self sacrificing qualities are also not to be so easily disregarded. Therefore, as I said, it is difficult to write an epitaph of a man who presented such a split image to the world.