Wednesday, April 26, 2006

First Bin Laden, and then Zarqawi. Bin Laden a pothead? My friend Amer is now convinced that Bin Laden is either a pothead, or a person who suffers from a severe case of ADD, or both. He was comparing him to a pothead he knows who also is afflicted with ADD. We were discussing the latest Bin Laden tape, and Amer was amazed at the extent to which Bin Laden rambles on and on, and then tediously elaborates and then goes back to the first topic, and on and on and on. But then again: he must have so much time on his hands. Again: this was your typical Bin Laden speech, when he has plenty of time on his hand, and he wants to comment on all issues around the world. But Bin Laden is not Nasser, and the “masses” are not hanging on his every word. But he does not know that. Cults, and Al-Qa`idah is a cult, are often so divorced from reality that they are certain of their own victory and of their imagined omnipotence, even when evidence to the contrary surrounds them. They become prisoners of their own bizarre world, and their own closed rhetoric, and totally divorced of reality. This allows Al-Qa`idah types to conclude from all what transpired after Sep. 11 that Islam (their version of Islam to be more precise) is spreading, and that Westerners are converting to Islam in record numbers. I read that on their sites. It was not easy reading the (incomplete) text that Al-Jazeera posted. I wonder what was missing. I know something is missing because at one point it says that he attacked Saudi Labor Minister, Ghazi Al-Qusaybi, and Saudi and other Gulf journalists. I wanted to know who they were. But it was not easy for me to read the full text, twice: it was quite rambling and tedious: his speech making is now similar to Saddam in that regard. Where are the polemicists of the French Revolution, or of the First International, or of the Russian Revolution? Bin Ladan made one effective (from his perspective) speech following Sep. 11, and then his speeches were not effective in delivering the message that he wanted to deliver. When I saw Zarqawi (more on that later) today, I thought that Zarqawi is articulate but not eloquent. Bin Laden is more eloquent, sometimes, and is as articulate. And Bin Laden can play to the camera, and is more media savvy than Zarqawi who was most awkward today when he was speaking: he looked shy when he started to speak, and his eyes were cast down, while the camera moved, perhaps to signal to him to look up, to no avail. Bin Laden sounded strong and firm in this speech, unlike previous speeches. But the content is not new at all. Different people are offering differing opinions of Bin Laden: some are saying that he is strong and others are saying that he is desperate. Only the White House can spin the situation to the effect that the production of Al-Qa`idah’s propaganda is evidence of the success of the Bush’s Doctrine. Bin Laden seems to feel safe enough to offer this long speech. There is a lot on the Danish Cartoon controversy: a whole lot. He started with it, and then came back to it before the end. And that poem at the end: it is so weak and unoriginal (First line: “The darkness of night is erased by day; and the humiliation of the face is erased by weapons”). Where is the good enthusiastic Arabic poetry when you want it? And who is the poet dude? No imagery and no allegories: just direct messages, and the rhymes are so predictable. I don’t know what to make of Bin Laden’s strong emphasis on the Danish cartoons: he also, typically, offered the opinions of the classical (most extremist) jurists: certainly Ibn Taymiyyah, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, and Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziayyah. That only confirms in my mind the need to write a book someday on Ibn Taymiyyah. But that really requires time: Ibn Taymiyyah was most prolific—his collected works are in tens of volumes, large volumes, but I am most stunned at his influence among present-day Muslim fundamentalists: the mainstream and the Bin Ladenite. French Orientalism early in the 20th century took note of Hanbalism and Ibn Taymiyyah. Of course, studies of Salafism is now trendy: but much of what I have seen is tabloidish. Bin Laden also mentioned Salman Rushdi: was that a secret message, a call to violence? You don’t know with those people; you don’t know their modus operandi. He spoke about Sudan, Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, East Timor—kid you not, Afghanistan, and the Clash of Civilization, which he endorsed. But after reading it carefully, I was stunned how different the text was from the Western media reports about the text: who are the people who translate for the Western media? Is that MEMRI too? Or is that the MBNBC translator of Arabic—one of the worst, who translated once fava beans as “victory,” kid you not? The message was all over the place that it is not clear what to make of it. I still believe that Bin Laden’s messages are aimed at the larger Arab and Islamic worlds, and not to the followers and core members of the movement, as the messages of Zarqawi and Dhawahiri are. Bin Laden wholeheartedly endorsed the Clash of Civilization thesis, and identified China as a Buddhist nation—just as Huntington strained to identify countries and cultures with identifying religions. He was quite indignant on East Timor, for some reason, and of course on Sudan. But unlike what was reported in the Western press, Bin Laden made it very clear that it is Iraq that is the center stage, not Sudan. So keen Bin Laden is on speaking to the larger Islamic and Arab worlds that he did not rehash Al-Qa`idah’s disagreements with Hamas, which you read on their websites and in their magazines. He only mentioned in passing that Al-Qa`idah is opposed to elections in Palestine. Now Zarqawi was a different show altogether: it was rather bizarre: showy and macho. Certainly he was feeling safe enough in the presumably Sunni areas of Iraq, to wonder around in open air, and in areas that can easily be identified by somebody who wants to know. Zarqawi was surrounded by his “senior aides”, not to be confused with the hundreds of Zarqawi’s “senior aides” who have been killed by US troops in the last few years. His message was bombastic and purely rhetorical. It had the logo of Shura Al-Majahidin: the organization (comprising some 8—or 6 in some accounts--different groups fighting in Iraq) that was announced back in January. We still don’t know if Zarqawi leads Shurah Al-Mujahidin or `Abdullah Rashid Al-Baghdadi does. Zarqawi gave no hints, although he spoke as Khadim (servant) of Jihad, thus mocking the title of the Servent of the Two Holy Sites in Saudi Arabia (in English the word “khadim” is wrongly translated as “guardian”—a classist translator for sure). Zarqawi was seen huddling with “senior aides” over a large map, and at one point somebody showed him a laptop, and there were plenty of weapons around. He did his usual pejorative reference to Shi`ites as “rafidah”—rejectionists, and attacked Sunnis in Iraq too. Zarawi does not approve of anybody, it seems, while Bin Laden divided the Muslims into three categories: 1) a group that aligned itself with the enemies of the Prophet; 2) a group that did nothing regarding the “insults to the Prophet”; 3) a group that went about fighting on behalf of the Prophet. Again, this is a movement that has no chance of mass success, although it aims at mass appeal. It reminds me of Duverger’s distinctions between parties that seek to win elections, and parties that stick to its ideology no matter what. Certainly, Al-Qa`idah is not eager to win elections any time soon. But Hamas went form one to the other in 10 years. Most ominous was an opinion that was offered by Lebanese Islamist thinker, Fathi Yakan (whose writings have influenced fundamentalists in the Arab and Muslim worlds in the last 50 years, and who recently broke with Al-Jama`ah Al-Islamiyyah which he had helped found) in an interview with NBN-TV. He said that somebody more scary and more tough than Bin Laden will be coming out. All of us today are not lucky to be living in the age of Bin Laden and…Bush.