THE rumour that Usama bin Laden (remember him?) fled Afghanistan to South Africa after 9/11, bought a bakkie, travelled to Beaufort West and assumed the name Ben Lategan is highly exaggerated.
More likely is the scenario that he fled together with his inner court to northwest Pakistan where – if he is still alive – skulks in a cave, or in the protective embrace of the mountainous “Taliban” tribes that President Parvez Musharraf, the CIA and the ISI have never been able to bribe, subdue or sideline.
Of course, there is also conspiracy – which in the case of Bin Laden is strong – that he was seen in a Gulf clinic receiving medical treatment after 9/11; that the Americans permitted him to escape, and that the neo-con warmongers in the White House actually allowed 9/11 to take place.
Whatever the truth (and who in the “war on terror” is ever going to tell it anyway) bin Laden has become a ghost, who together with Saddam Hussein is a tattered historical icon of George Bush’s miserable presidency. That the mujahidin – whose corps became later known as al-Qa’idah (or the “Base”), were originally recruited by Saudi Arabia and trained by the US to fight Russians – has been long, long forgotten.
I mean, wasn’t it Ronald Reagan – a Cold War Republican propounding apartheid was a better deal than communism – who proclaimed on the White House lawns that the mujahidin fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan reminded him of America’s founding fathers?
The point – the irony – is that Usama bin Laden, and his fellow mujahidin, were actively recruited by the country that ended up hunting them down as “terrorists”. America’s greatest ally, the Saudi monarchy, was the most complicit, conveniently dispatching many of its angry young Wahhabi dissidents to Afghanistan via the CIA.
These mujahidin, who also originated from other parts of the Muslim world, proved to be doughty fighters. Unafraid of death on the battlefield, they thoroughly spooked the heroin-addled Russian conscripts with their bravado.
Interestingly, one of the figureheads of the war was the Palestinian ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam, the father of the “Afghan Arabs”, and said to be an influence on bin Laden. ‘Azzam was later assassinated in Peshawar (allegedly by the bin Laden camp) for issuing a fatwa that once the Russians were ejected from Afghanistan, a Muslim could no longer take sides.
There is also speculation that MOSSAD, fearing jihad being imported to Palestine, were part of the plot – it’s a case of pick your conspiracy theory.
Bin Laden’s role in Afghanistan was always destined to be different to that of the rank and file. The mujahidin agenda – chiefly drawn up by the US – needed royal endorsement, a big Saudi name and preferably a prince or two, to bolster the initiative.
Unfortunately (for the “conflict engineers” that is) not one of the thousands of pampered Saudi princes wanted to crease his Armani thawb or soil his sandals in the cause of US jihad. The mantle then fell to Usama bin Laden, a son of one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent businessmen – and a trusted friend of Washington.
The fall of the Soviets in 1989 was seen as a victory for Islam (and the end of the Cold War), papering over the cracks in Afghanistan, and the fallout of US interference in Iraq and Iran. For no sooner had the guns fallen silent, than there were several thousand mujahidin with nowhere to go.
Bin Laden – the wealthy benefactor – was the man who looked after many of them, al-Qa’idah originally being just a data-base of those who’d fought in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, the jihad genie then popped out of the bottle. Much of the resultant Islamic “militancy” – deriving from the mujahidin’s “reformist” Wahhabi code – in central Asia and beyond can be ascribed to the US, and her allies such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. They gave their proteges the impression they could defeat superpowers.
But the real turning point came in 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Usama bin Laden approached the Saudi monarchy, saying that al-Qa’idah was prepared to defend Saudi Arabia, and sort the Iraqis out. For contrary to Bushspeak, there was no love lost between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qa’idah figurehead.
That bin Laden’s offer was spurned is history. President Bush senior rallied an international alliance to defend Kuwait, and US forces landed on Saudi soil. This enraged bin Laden, who saw this as not only a slap in the face for the mujahidin, but an insult to Muslims – how could infidel boots tramp on hallowed Muslim soil?
Bin Laden, who had not been antagonistic to the Saudi monarchy up until then, changed his views. He also turned on the US, issuing his infamous death fatwas (in spite of not being qualified to make religious judgements). From then on, al-Qa’idah became seriously political, its agenda targeted at what it regarded as “rogue states” such as the US.
And this is a dimension of so-called “militant Islam” that is so often overlooked. More often than not, when faced with honest academic inquiry, most Islamist agendas boil down to political, rather than religious issues.
For example, the recent rise of the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt and Palestine has been chiefly because of the abject failure of Arab nationalism. That this has been a predominantly peaceful and law-abiding phenomenon has been completely ignored.
What has also been disregarded is that the aspirations of the movements have been specific to their communities only. Hamas has said time and again that its struggle is against Zionism, not the rest of the world. Hizballah has also stated that its agenda is local, not international. The Egyptian Brotherhood has no interest in liberating other countries.
But where al-Qa’idah differs significantly is that it is a trans-national “consciousness”, a paradigm that sees the world through the flaky prism of “them or us” – a revolution against dark forces. For unlike other movements, al-Qa’idah has no defined membership, no national borders, no written charters and few– if any – links with those who often claim to act in its name.
But how does one understand al-Qa’idah – or the abstract noun that operates under its umbrella? That, God-willing, will be the topic of our next column in which we will thoroughly examine the mutant ‘aqidah, or credo, of the man that is the ghost of Usama bin Laden.
Copyright Shafiq Morton
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