Osama Bin Laden met his end this 2 May 2011, some 66 years, almost to to the day, after the death of the 20th Century’s public enemy number one, the German dictator, Adolf Hitler.
I first came across bin Laden in a school lesson back in the mid to late nineties, well before the 2001 World Trade Centre attacks... It was in an article written under the heading of “The face of Evil” (or something similar). I went to a Catholic school and the lesson was in religious education; I forget the specific purpose of it, but it had something to do with good, evil and the choices and influences associated with both conditions… The article reported on Bin Laden’s then record as a terrorist, his ability to co-ordinate terrorist activities and the threat he posed to civilian society – as the world was then…
I remember the article vividly – it was one of those things that as an adolescent, lodges in your mind. It troubled me and I remember thinking at the time, why hasn’t someone “done something” about this person? Reading about his life, what he’d already perpetrated and what he openly said he wanted to do, I could not understand why he hadn’t been assassinated, or at least captured, already… It was the first time I had encountered a political figure (of a perverted variety) that was alive and genuinely frightening.
A few years later, the September 11 attacks occurred in New York. Living in Australia, I heard the news on my radio alarm in the early hours of the morning and thought it was a surreal dream. It was a “horrendous good morning” – I wrote quite a bit of prose around this time attempting to capture what was happening…
[A short prose piece I wrote around the time, One Way, Boston to LA (referencing the flight path of one of the hi-jacked planes) is included at the bottom of this blog – its scratchy writing as an amateur 18 year old trying to express an idea, but captures a bit of the confusion of the time through my more youthful eyes… ]
Like many, I spent the next couple of weeks glued to the television – searching for answers. I was at Uni at the time and barely attended for a week or two… When I did, the atmosphere was one of a subdued, saddened stupor – televisions were set up in libraries that attracted crowds and people carried themselves with a quiet, dignified bearing. Thankfully I didn’t know anyone directly injured or killed – but unquestionably, everyone was affected – much did change in the ensuing ten years; the world did change.
Thoughts naturally turn to vengeance and the identity of the culprits in such circumstances, and my mind immediately went back to my old R.E. lesson and the strange fellow with the dark eyes who stared back from beneath the word “Evil”. I implicitly sensed he would be involved in some way if not the chief “architect”.
Yesterday, after a man-hunt dating back to President Bill Clinton’s administration, U.S. Forces caught up with the chief enemy of their country. It was fitting that it was the Americans that ultimately apprehended and killed bin Laden – he has probably inflicted more pain and damage on their country – emotionally, diplomatically and economically - than any other single individual in their history.
So to that end, I can in part understand the celebratory, joyous reaction that erupted spontaneously in the U.S. ; Americans have been hurting for a long time and this was a massive breakthrough – a big pressure release – and a closure of sorts. Having said that, celebrating the killing of anyone so rapturously does risk being inflammatory. I think, while understandable, it does risk evoking the same kind of misunderstanding, contempt and rage that Westerners experienced when they witnessed the gun toting “party goers” after September 11…
Probably not since Adolf Hitler has there been a unified condemnation and pursuit of one single person. It is fascinating to explore how two figures like Hitler and bin Laden arrived at such a dismal destination, particularly in view of their backgrounds.
Bin Laden was born into great affluence, and was well educated, attending University and studying economics, business and, it is believed, civil engineering. He was apparently deeply interested in religion and wrote quite prolifically. For a time he was involved in the billion dollar family construction business in Saudi Arabia. Ironically his father and brother died in aircraft accidents – his father at the hands of an American pilot. He became drawn to extreme religious views and formed a vision for an archaic, expansionary political model across the Middle East and Africa, based on a seventh century model and Sharia law. His preferred way of prosecuting this was by way of jihad (violence and terrorism) against anyone who didn’t believe in his vision.
Hitler and bin Laden had this in common - aberrant, controlling, intolerant, expansive and aggressive ideals for political regimes that formed the basis of their actions. Both men were nihilistic and remorseless but cloaked their behaviour in anti-semitic and nationalistic / religious fervour to make it more “acceptable” and “attractive” to vulnerable or extremist, would-be supporters.
Hitler’s past is well documented, but in essence he was a failed landscape painter. Together with architecture, this was his life’s passion and aspiration; but, upon failing, through various twists of fate, he embraced fanatical political ideals, and, like bin Laden, through possessing the charisma to persuade others, he manipulated the populous and the German democratic system to ultimately establish an aggressive dictatorship for himself.
It would seem both shared something of a creative imagination – albeit distorted and ill applied – this too made them ever more persuasive and dangerous. Both saw combat in war which cannot be underestimated either in forging their militarist methods and perhaps corrupting their ideas and perceptions either…
And yet, there is so much that is inexplicable and incongruent about their rise.
While I subscribe to the concepts of “good” and “evil”, I also feel it provides a convenient dichotomy for many to characterise a person, like a Hitler or bin Laden, who is beyond characterisation. Viewing these people as “evil” is a way of explain the confusing manner in which human potential extends in both directions – to growth and destruction.
However, as some have remarked, the forces that shaped these two men must have been awesome...
Which brings me to the book I recently finished called “The Castle in the Forest” – the late American writer, Norman Mailer’s final book. Mailer, American born of Jewish descent and having fought in World War 2, had been, by his own admission, absorbed with Hitler his whole life and chose his ancestry and back story as a platform for what is ultimately a fictional, allegorical novel, rooted in some amount of historical fact.
In very simple terms, the book supposes that Satan is present at the conception of Hitler (who is born out of incest) and his subject devils (or demons), follow and use various, strange methods to interfere in the life of the family and influence Hitler whom they see as having “potential” – to set him on his course, as it were. It is only concerned with Hitler’s formative, childhood years and the story of his ancestors, parents and siblings.
It is narrated by the main demon tasked with this “assignment”, Dieter, who on occasion assumes the body of an SS officer. In one sense, it is a bit of an extension of the perspective taken by C.S. Lewis in his famous work, “the Screwtape Letters”.
It’s the first book I have read in a while that really got to me and was disturbing on some level that is hard to explain - that influences your perceptions. I really like and admire Mailer as a writer; like many of his “new journalism” contemporaries, his breadth of work is vast. He is also a very articulate and thought provoking interview subject. [You can see him being interviewed about the book on the Charlie Rose program here: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/22 ]
The book received critical acclaim and Mailer himself identified it as one of his major books, before dying the same year it was published (2007). Despite this, I was not blown away by the mastery of the writing, although it is very good, but rather of the previously mentioned, somewhat unsettling way that this book seeps into your subconscious thinking and contemplation – which is probably testament to what Mailer set out to achieve, and the true success of the book.
Even though it is not a fun nor easy read, it is actually blackly humorous in many parts and you get the strong sense from the more humiliating depictions of the young Hitler and his family, that the author is derisive and intentionally humbling (albeit not so mockingly as say, Director Quentin Tarantino in the film “Inglorious Basterds”) - of his chief subject… The “unseemly” and strange subject matter such as incest, frequent scatological references, brutality and unnerving concentration on the “senses” generally, especially smells and the olfactory sense, make the book heavy – but the premise that Mailer seems to be asserting is his strong belief in supernatural “forces” of good and evil – as a way of explaining how particular individuals may turn out.
I think any writer is successful and important when they can produce a book that at least gets you thinking and considering these higher ideas that form part of a complex array of existential, spiritual and human questions - especially in light of historical events like the rise and demise of bin Laden.
To use an old cliché, such writers can help us make sense of a world that is not always easy to understand.
ONE WAY, BOSTON TO L.A.
(2001)
I hear the sullen banter from beneath my bed sheets,
A dream…it fails to register.
Awake now, I hear again the horrendous good morning.
Stunned
Confused?
Yes, I am awake now.
Set free by an act of evil,
Anointed in devastation,
Swept to paradise on a torrent of sin,
The twisted paradox that is, life on earth.
The house is silent,
Silent, but for the soul piercing screams of distant victims,
Silent, but for the desperate scrambling for love, far away,
Silent…but for the long, drawn sobs of the mournful creator in his watchtower.
I am awake now and the paradox becomes apparent.
I am compelled to share in the moment.
To open the doors to the cold frost,
The debilitating spring.
Ungainly, fat rats dance and celebrate
To the music of gunfire.
Joyous and
Elated.
The paradox is sprawling…
“Crucify them!” I howl, then realise my mistake.
Humanity’s horror.
Our greatest challenge?
Our finest hour?
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