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The Chronicle Review From the issue dated November 4, 2005 In Bin Laden's Words By BRUCE B LAWRENCE It began with an e-mail message from an editor last spring: "Would you pl ease write an essay for a new collection of writings we're putting out?" Instead of the reflexive, "No, I'm too busy," I found myself agreeing t o write an introduction for the first-ever English translation of the ma jor declarations of Osama bin Laden. Although bin Laden has become a legendary figure in the West, the body of his statements has until now never been available to the public. Occasi onal fragments are cited, and a few speeches have been reproduced in the press or made available on the Internet. Yet official pressures have en sured that for the most part, his voice has been tacitly censored for En glish speakers, at the same time that it has entered an alternative sphe re largely confined to Arabic speakers. Bin Laden's rise to prominence mirrors the latest phase in the Informatio n Age, the techniques of which he has adroitly mastered. In a 10-year pe riod from 1994 to 2004 that coincides with the emergence of a virtual un iverse moving from print to the Internet, from wired to wireless commu nication around the globe bin Laden has crafted a series of carefully staged statements designed for new media. They include interviews with W estern and Arab journalists, handwritten letters scanned onto discs, fax es, and audiotapes, and above all video recordings distributed via the f irst independent Arabic-language news outlet, the Qatari satellite telev ision station Al-Jazeera. Those are the texts that were sent to me and p roposed as the core of a volume dedicated to making informed critical di scussion of Osama's outlook possible for a broader public, one not limit ed to secretive government agencies and counterterrorism experts. When the publisher, Verso, contacted me, I was on the cusp of finishing t wo other books, each with an element from bin Laden. The first was an an thology of literary sources on violence, including bin Laden's 1996 decl aration of war against America, which I examined as a departure from oth er representations of violence largely because its impact expanded throu gh the Internet, TV, and audiotapes. The second book contextualized the Koran over time, contrasting bin Laden's use of scripture with that of o ther modern interpreters, notably Muhammad Iqbal from Pakistan and WD Mohammed of the Muslim American Society. Though familiar with bin Laden's thought, I still was not prepared for th e task ahead. During the summer all other projects had to be put on hold . Before introducing the statements, I had to locate them. I assisted To m Penn, an editor for Verso, as he tirelessly tried to track down the av ailable literary output of bin Laden. While the Al-Jazeera recordings we re close at hand and readily obtainable, many of the audiotapes had appe ared on Islamist Web sites that were subsequently shut down. Also elusiv e were interviews with journalists: Some were only partially preserved, or released in summary censored form, often in garbled translations. And then there were the statements attributed to bin Laden that, in fact, p roved not to be his. Compounding the procurement problem was Verso's decision to annotate the writings. I had to annotate not just the context of each pronouncement b ut also bin Laden's use of a dizzying array of scriptural and historical sources. He begins the 1996 declaration, for instance, with a quick suc cession of Koranic citations, one of which declares: "I only wish for re form, to the degree that I am able; and I can only succeed through God, in whom I repose my trust, and to whom I turn." The speaker exhorting hi s people to reform is the prophet Shu'aib. Though wealthy, he is said to have earned his wealth by acceptable means and also to have committed h imself to social justice. The inference, evident to any Arabic listener, is that bin Laden compares himself and his own mission with that of his Koranic predecessor. Students in Britai n and the United States were hired to trace the most difficult of his re ferences in the 24 documents that make up this volume. Because bin Laden speaks an arcane, almost neocla ssical style of Arabic, the lyrical flourishes that punctuate many of hi s letters to Arab audiences are not citations but original compositions. Avoiding colloquialisms, he often gives his message a contemporary reso nance by improvising verse or rhymed prose that identifies him with the earliest heroes of Islamic history. In a sermon delivered in 2003 on a m ajor feast day in the Islamic calendar, he praises the September 11 hija ckers and goes on to compare the twin towers of the World Trade Center t o the idols lodged in the Kaaba of Mecca, destroyed by the Prophet Muham mad when he returned to his home city victorious in 630. Other Islamic r ejectionists advocate total separation between Islam as pure monotheism and Judaism and Christianity, both tainted with idolatrous practice, but few combine ideological conviction with the rhetorical subtlety and per formative finesse that characterize Osama bin Laden. We learn three things by reading bin Laden in his own words. He retains the same , anti-imperialist agenda but tries to benefit from the forces that 9/11 unleashed. Responding to the US-led war, first in Afghanistan and the n in Iraq, bin Laden becomes more alert to his own role on the world sta ge. He crafts letters to Muslim audiences with the confidence of a man a lready writing his own history. The letters reveal him to be a calculati ng, highly literate polemicist. Stateless, he creates his own image of a n Islamic supernation that replaces all current Muslim nation-states. He projects himself as the counterweight to both American hegemony and Ara b perfidy. He is the Nasser of the new century, trying to rouse Muslim a udiences as much through his rhetoric as his action. In his view, it is they, not he, who perpetu ate terror. "Terror is the most dreaded weapon in the modern age and the Western media are mercilessly using it against their own people," he de clares in an October 2001 interview with Al-Ja-zeera. Because, in bin Laden's view, "it i mplants fear and helplessness in the psyche of the people of Europe and the United States. It means that what the enemies of the United States c annot do, its media are doing!" Second, bin Laden not only assails the Western media, but he also talks o ver the heads of Arab and Muslim governments. He appeals directly to the youth, those with education and skills who still find themselves on the margins of wealthy societies and under the thumb of corrupt autocrats. He invites the overeducated and undervalued to become the vanguard of a war against religious enemies, Jews and Christians. Through selective ci tations from the Koran as well as the moral example of the Prophet, he c laims that Muslims have always fought against their Abrahamic cousins, a nd the stakes have never been higher than now. "Resist the current Zioni st-Crusader campaign against the umma, or Islamic supernation," he urges young Muslim men, "since it threatens the entire umma, its religion, an d its very existence." Third, to underscore the extremity of the current crisis, bin Laden invok es a new, Islamic form of just-war theory. For both classical Christian and Islamic theorists, as well as for their contemporary successors, jus t war has revolved around causes for going to war and methods of waging war. Collapsing both into one comprehensive argument, bin Laden defines the current war as a war "against religious enemies" that is nothing les s than a war for survival on the part of the Islamic supernation. "We sh ould see events not as isolated incidents," he warns, "but as part of a long chain of conspiracies, a war of annihilation in all senses of the w ord." Because "the Zionist-Crusaders" have launched World War III, he ar gues, random, unannounced violence against enemy civilians, including wo men and children, is now justified in the name of Islam. Bin Laden's project couples faith and fighting with relentless insistence on the need to act, and his messag...
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