Osama the man, Osama the myth

OSAMA bin Laden is dead. No, this is no more a breaking news, but a stupefying enunciation that the most wanted man in the world is wanted no more. He has been laid to rest many leagues under the North Sea, bundled in burial shroud and plopped hurriedly and hissingly into water like burning charcoal. The peace-loving world is relieved that the most notorious terrorist is dead.
But there is certainly something odd about the rush of it. If the Iranians are claiming that they have evidence Osama bin Laden was already dead two good years ago, others are also having similar doubts. The United States simply killed its Enemy Number One for whom it has been ransacking two countries for the last ten years, waging a war against terror 24/7 all over the world and having its citizens and visitors confined to a prison of paranoia. Then they buried that man in some distant sea, all in a day's work.
All that time, for the last five years, when the United States was hunting for Osama bin Laden, he was hiding in a house located in a Pakistani garrison town. Then one fine midnight US forces arrived in two Chinook helicopters that compromised the Pakistani radar system. They exchanged firefight with the world's most elusive fugitive, killed him and then quickly buried him at sea. In a nutshell, Osama's death comes as a riddle inside an enigma wrapped in a mystery.
If we take those five years of Osama's life, he, who had a $50 million prize on his head, lived and died in obscurity. It was an antithesis to his reputation as the archangel of anarchy, whose name was flashing on televisions and newspapers across the world every day for last ten years, whose moves were being watched by every intelligence apparatus in the world as millions of passengers were walking through scanners at every airport in every country and millions of Muslims were being scrutinised and frisked as perennial suspects of being potential terrorists.
It was odder than odd that while the entire world was looking for him, Osama bin Laden was living like a family man with his three wives and children right under the nose of the Pakistan government and its intelligence machinery. But even if we choose to ignore that elemental fact of missing links, Osama's death has an element of disbelief.
Why did he have to be killed and buried in such a hurry? Why was it conducted like a ceremony, which has skipped its essential steps? Osama bin Laden should have been captured alive or wounded. He should have been tortured and interrogated. His confessions by the hour should have made headline news for many days. I don't know about the Americans, but as a Muslim who has been a collateral damage of 9/11, I would have liked to hear the man tell us why he had indeed planned that attack on the American soil.
Much to my dismay and that of many others around the world, Osama's death came as a tight knot on a loose noose. Perhaps the Americans had taken out their anger on another man already. They went to Iraq on Osama's heels and made a public spectacle of hanging Saddam Hussein. They captured the Iraqi dictator, held his trial televised to every corner of the world, and then hanged him on the auspicious morning of an Eid day. The Americans have exacted their full revenge on Sancho Panza and spared Don Quixote.
They have taken their precautions. They have buried him at the sea to prevent his grave from becoming a shrine. How far that is going to work remains to be seen. Che Guevara was buried in an unmarked grave in the Bolivian jungle but his stylised image has been transformed into a worldwide emblem celebrated till today.
This is where the Americans might be proved wrong. Modern-day shrines are not necessarily built on the ground. They can be on t-shirts, coffee mugs, computer screens, car stickers, decals, mobile phone screens, etc. They can certainly be built in peoples' imagination, in the secret vaults of their hearts and minds. Who knows, someday even the house in Abottabad might turn into a holy site for Osama devotees!
Because, the Americans have failed to separate the man from his myth. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in his reaction: "Canada receives the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden with sober satisfaction. Sadly, others will take his place." It was important to liquidate the man, but more important to antiquate his philosophy.
Unless resolved that a victorious Islam doesn't require a defeated America, or a defeated America doesn't progress Islam, Osama will remain a dead man fighting, leading his army even from the depth of his watery grave.

The writer is Editor, First News and a columnist of The Daily Star.
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