A POST OSAMA WORLD
(5/11, Spain. This is the last in a series starting with “Bin Laden University” “Obama-Osama”, and “A New Sheriff In Town”. The preferable would be to read them in order, but it is not essential.) Is it possible for an American, or even just a western man, to say something good about Osama Bin Laden? There was a time when nobody thought a human being could run a 4 minute mile --- and then along came Roger Bannister. I will now try to be that western man, nay, even more so, that American who can find something good to say about Osama Bin Laden. They said it couldn’t be done, but I will now try to become the Roger Bannister of American punditry. Some of you out there in essayland might be familiar with those clever advertisements for a Mexican beer starring “The Most Interesting Man in the World” (stay thirsty my friends). He is not only rich beyond all practical necessity, he’s sophisticated, worldly, educated, sensitive but masculine at the same time. Most of all --- and really, The Most Interesting Man in the World is just a front for The Sexiest Man in the World --- he is totally irresistible to women. Without him having to be anything more than he so naturally is, they flock to him, surround him, they hang on his every word and gesture. They care not who he sleeps with as long as he’ll sleep with them, because --- he’s the most interesting man in the world. He’s kind of a cross between the Virgin mogul, Richard Branson, and Antonio Banderas. Osama Bin Laden could have been The Most Interesting Man in the World. It is easy to forget he was sprung from one of the richest, most influential, power brokering families on earth (just ask their partners in crime, the Bush family, about it). He was born to be that oil baron playboy, educated at Harvard or Oxford, who shows up at OPEC meetings in Vienna. He could have been that multi-lingual sheik who makes cameo appearances at the world’s most glamorous events --- Cannes, the World Cup, the Chinese New Year in Shanghai, Derby Day at Ascot and exclusive red carpet events of all stripes. As I write, he could have been sitting down to an elegant “petit dejeuner” on the shaded deck of his glittering ocean going yacht in some secluded “cala” off the coast of Ibiza. He could have been daintily anointing a fresh croissant with a locally made raspberry marmalade as the latest French starlet climbs out of the azure waters of the Mediterranean clad only in a diminutive bikini bottom. This is who Osama Bin Laden was born to be. Strikingly tall, lean and handsome in the finest traditions of his race, he could have been, “The Most Interesting Man in the World”. Who can possibly untangle the subterranean twists and folds in the caves of human behavior; who can possibly illuminate the darkness of this realm so that a clear picture of what motivates a human being can be seen? What drives a person like Osama Bin Laden to give up such a coveted birthright for the life of a fugitive in some of the most inhospitable parts of the world? Was it just the cause he believed in, or was there something about the swashbuckling adventure of it all that appealed to him --- the danger, the risk, the gamble with his life? Perhaps for a man born to have everything, this was the only way to give his life meaning or purpose. I can’t say for sure, and neither can you. Perhaps even he could not explain it to himself. Can any human being completely understand what’s gotten them to the present we all live in? But I think we can say --- that is, if we set aside the disregard for human life Osama Bin Laden is no more guilty of than the Barak Obama wing of humanity --- that there is something noble in what Bin Laden has done. He gave it all up because he believed in something beyond his own personal well being. There’s a certain degree of integrity woven into such actions, a degree of courage and fortitude. Can something like that be said for any of the people leading the western world at this moment? Go on, name one. Unfortunately, that nobility is wasted on a world view that is antiquated and unacceptable. Before getting back to that, let’s examine the Bush-Obama world view. Is it a slam dunk winner over the Bin Laden concept, or does it have its own contradictions, its own shortcomings, its own inabilities to provide for a healthier more fulfilled human being? Does it even have the seeds of its own destruction? Anyone mildly familiar with this work will know it is a perpetual critique of such a world view. It postulates the idea that there is not one problem currently afflicting mankind --- be it ecological, economic, social, political, emotional --- that is not the result of a socio-economic system that gives incentive to actions with negative results. This is not just confined to the touchable problems of sustainability, environmental decay, wealth distribution and such --- indeed, this whole Obama-Osama conflict is the direct result of the absurd energy needs of the western ethic’s consumer society --- but includes a whole host of emotional problems such a hyper-competitive, materially psychotic, spiritually deficient culture gives forth with. The conflict inherent in an individual’s economic needs as opposed to the finer instincts of human behavior is forever present in this economic system and its modus operandi. It creates contradictions between how we’ve been taught to act and how we have to act that create beings of semi-neurotic characteristics. It is a world view that could even lead to an apocalyptic interruption of the evolutionary process. In spite of all that --- and taking into account the possibility of such a thing as “progress” or an improved human condition, which is a concept this writer, Post Consumer Man, finds impossible to live without --- this world view, currently most embodied in Barak Obama, is most likely the highest expression of human endeavor to date. Without getting overly nuanced as to the emotional well being of a human being and how that is defined; without getting into any esoteric athletics as to what simpler, more primitive cultures may have fulfilled these emotional needs better than today’s complex societies do, it can be said, with some degree of confidence, that this “western ethic” has provided more people with a decent level of nourishment, clothing, housing, education and options in life, than anything in the past has. But it is not the culmination of anything. It is not the end game. It is just a step along the way as the human race continues to struggle with its place in the grand scheme of things. It’s where we’ve gone for now. If we are to reach any higher realization as living beings, this world view must be modifi ed. This whole work has become a continual mantra for this modification. If it is not modified in a timely fashion, much of what it has accomplished could be set back irreparably. But it has the capability to modify itself, indeed, that seems to be part of its DNA. Its struggle is now almost completely an internal struggle, one pitting the entrenched elements of privileged self interest against the mass of humanity clamoring to move on in the finest traditions of western ethic progress. Its conflict with the Islamic world is just a sideshow. In contrast to this, the Osama world view is a dead end. It is hopelessly imprisoned in a stultifying religious dogma that is incapable of renewing itself (some elements of American politics now show similar signs). Its misogynous elements are not only degrading for half of humanity, but a symptom of just how petrified this world view is. It is a societal idea that has pulled off onto a railroad siding that is now rusting and overgrown with weeds and bushes, cut off from the main line of trains heading into the future. This should not be seen as an endorsement for the western ethic now most responsible for what is happening on this planet. Indeed, Bin Laden and his ilk are no more than bi-products of this socio-economic system created in the west. The conflict with Osama Bin Laden the Bush-Obama world now finds itself in is a direct result of the idiocy of its own world view. It is not a question of good guys and bad guys, but of smart guys and stupid guys and where we might go from here. The burden to find a smart guy somewhere, somehow, most likely resides in the western world. Bin Laden is little more than a minor annoyance whose cultural vision is inconsequential to the future. I’d like to close this series of essays swirling around the murder (let’s call it what it is) of Osama Bin Laden with a quote from an epic novel of recent vintage. It was written by Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer with a portentous imagination, a true gift for story telling, a profound intellect and a cosmopolitan world experience that could make him a candidate for “The Most Interesting Man in the World”. The book in question is called “1Q84”, and one of its characters says the following: “In this world, absolute good and absolute evil do not exist. Good and evil is not something stationary, but something that is always changing place and situation.”
Jerome Grapel
Author of the book of essays, “Because You Never Asked”
Phone: (305) 766-9576 • Email: JerryG@postcman.info • www.postcman.info
