Bin Laden: The End of a Stage, Not of a Man

The end of someone like Bin Laden in such a way is an anticipated end. I do not think he had not expected it, nor did it

With Bin Laden’s death, many countries - as some believe - will hesitate to use his hold as an excuse, and will have no option but to look for other alternatives, writes Abdulaziz AlKhamis.

come a surprise to his supporters.

The question is what is the fate of the jihadist ideology, after the death of its ‘heroic’ character?

The fate of Al-Qaeda is related to the ideology it holds, which is not a product of Bin Laden alone, but it is an ideology that extends from Sayyid Qutb to different figures that now live in various places, holding the hard-line ideology and hostility to the West and everything that is liberal. The killing of Bin Laden is not the end of this ideology, but the conceiving of new and different types will continue, as Sayyid Qutb and those before and after him as far as Bin Laden were killed. The devise of new principles will take various forms that may be characterized as being more realistic and less bloody, according to the intellectual changes in the Arab world.

The killing of Bin Laden is a echoing media victory for the Americans, and also a relief for the Arab regimes, which fought against Bin Laden and suffered much from Al-Qaeda. If the disappearance of Bin Laden is followed by easing off the anti-terror operation, this would be one of the repeated mistakes of the U.S Administrations. The fight should continue, not only with the military effort, but also the political endeavors, which recently stood out in the effective change of the American policy towards the wishes of the region’s people. This is represented in staying at an equal distance from the governments and the populations, in spite of the insistence that it should take the side of the people. This was evident in the speeches of the US administration addressed to the Arab world.

The lukewarm reception by the Arab world of the news of Bin Laden’s death is due to people having turned away from the global jihad, and are preoccupied with the national jihad and the change of their regimes and reforming their conditions. It does not matter to the Arab citizens where the US battleships stand, and where the Americans build their bases on the territory of Islam. But what matters to them is to get regimes that administer justice, and to participate in the management of the policies of their own homelands, and in cleansing them from corruption. After the foundations of the fair state are laid and the local oppressor is brought down, the talk then starts about the other oppressor.

Bin Laden failed to lead a people change, loyal to his jihadist ideology. His failure was an echoing one in Saudi Arabia in particular, as many rejected his ideas and stood against them. This was after he had conducted a series of bombings that disappointed many of those who belong to the Islamic trend. The Saudi regime and the West benefited much from the mistakes of Bin Laden. Even if we believe what those obsessed with the conspiracy theory rumor - that these bombings were arranged by the Saudi regime - Bin Laden, with unprecedented stupidity, hurried to adopt and praise their perpetrators.

Al-Qaeda could not achieve victory in Saudi Arabia because the Saudi people found the menu offered by Bin Laden unpalatable and that it - the society - believes that the only acceptable choice is a reserved openness and well-studied development towards reaching freedoms, without blowing oneself up.

On the other side, the followers of Al-Qaeda were infected with the collective paranoia and began to pop their heads out through the Internet. These heads were taken by the Saudi government with all efficacy and force, earning the regime a security legitimacy that was available to it only thanks to the lack of wisdom of Al-Qaeda, its ideologues and executives.

Why was Bin Laden killed at this time? Although the information on his location, where he was killed, was available since August last year, according to American statements. The answer is that the presence of Bin Laden was no longer necessary for the US policy as envisaged by many. But his presence became an advantage to many Arab regimes, which exploited the name of Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to quell the uprisings, as is happening in Libya and Syria and other countries.

With the death of Bin Laden, many countries - as some believe - will hesitate to use his hold as an excuse, and will have no option but to look for other alternatives.

The killing of Bin Laden is the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. The era of struggle against Islamists has gone, and none of the two sides won, neither the US and its supporters nor the hard-line organizations and ideologies. The battle involved the exploitation of slogans and ideas from both sides. The Western hard-liner encountered the Islamic hard-liner, and the two were defeated after each side massacred the other one.

The new era is an era that heralds the emergence of new Islamists, working in the Arab streets not caves, bowing to public opinion for the sake of electoral votes, not imams leading them to recruiting camps in cold valleys. This era may be distinguished as the citizen is free to express their opinion, not led by the authority of the mosque as a blind person who put his hand on the shoulder of an opportunists imam or a ruler who rules with what God did not ordain, in the name of God.

It is the new media that will lead the youth of this nation, not the ministries of interior with their justifying and repressing thinkers. This media shapes a forum of dialogue, where the word is the most powerful and the creative idea that will directly benefit the individual is the best. A dogmatic Sheikh can not find access to and dwell in the mind of a young man unless this young man is cut off from the free world.

The West in this new era is sweeping the Islamic world, not with its military forces, but with its liberal intellectual product and its economic goods, that is beneficial to the people. The young Arab man finds himself in front of different intellectual and political products, which is not forced to upon him unless he finds them attractive. This young man went out to burn himself in protest against who oppresses his right to work, not to blow himself up among a group of Western tourists. This young Arab man knew that Al-Qaeda's ideology is not a solution, nor does it bring a way out. The young man's conviction of the corruption and narrow-mindedness of this ideology will increase after the killing of the leader of this ideology, while living in an expensive villa and not in a tent or a cave, according to his declarations of modesty for many decades.

Before the US killed Bin Laden, the Arab society murdered his thoughts and ideals after the long decade of conflict between the people and the fundamentalist ideology. The society paid a heavy price due to his corrupting principles, in the form of states, individuals and money.

In the end, Bin Laden left un-regrettably. We hope that the fake uses of his jihadist account in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya, along with some Western and Arab security services will leave with him. We are waiting for all those obscure Islamist trends to vanish, the trends that drag our Arab world to the depths of killing, destruction, exclusion, and considering the citizen as just a beast that does not grasp anything in the world of scholars and sultans.

Abdulaziz AlKhamis is a London based Saudi political analyst

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