SIMPLIFYING THE ENEMY
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
I was walking down the street the other day and saw a young man wearing a
shirt with Osama bin Laden’s likeness emblazoned on it. A red X was marked
over the face and the shirt said "dead or alive". A day or so later, I read
an article about a Los Angeles woman who was making Osama bin Laden piñatas,
to be beaten with sticks until they burst raining down candy or other goodies
for awaiting youngsters. A man is running a website with all kinds of bin
Laden paraphernalia, including toilet paper rolls, bulls’ eyes for target
practice, and Halloween masks. It’s bad enough that bin Laden’s face graces
the cover of some of our newsmagazines, and that his image is broadcast all
over our televisions. Now, he is becoming a popular villain, face grimacing
from t-shirts, posters, and (ugh!) toilet paper.
Isn’t American capitalism wonderful? It is so ingrained that some of us will
find a profitmaking opportunity anywhere. I suspect, though, that ethnicity
has just a bit to do with the way his likeness has been demonized. I didn’t
see people splatting Timothy McVeigh’s face on t-shirts, but then he looked
too much like the boy next door. Don’t get me wrong – I’m as repelled by
Osama bin Laden as the next person is. I simply think that throwing him on
t-shirts, toilet paper, and dartboards is a shortsighted, simple approach to
our situation.
What if we hit the "bull’s eye" and the Taliban turned over bin Laden today?
Would his incarceration eliminate any chance of future terrorist attacks?
Hardly. Much like the terrorist groups that operate in the United States,
international terrorists are a set of loosely connected cells whose mission
seems to be "wipe out the West". Bin Laden may have put the September 11
events in motion, but it is not clear that he also directed the bioterrorism
that is contaminating our mail system. Instead, when people say they hate
the Untied States and want to eliminate it, a bunch of free agents, acting
independently, do whatever they can to cause chaos, confusion, and terror.
We’ve reduced this to a sporty symbolism where the good guys are to be
cheered and the bad guys jeered. It’s not clear, though, who all of the bad
guys are. So we use the bin Laden image to mobilize against, to hype up our
sense of emergency. And we forget that bin Laden probably didn’t put anthrax
in an envelope and send it to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. The person
who did that won’t be a face on a T-shirt, or a name we will recognize. So
far, they have operated entirely anonymously, and we have so focused on bin
Laden that we forget about both those loosely affiliated with him and those
who might be copying his terrorist tactics. After all, the wannabe anthrax
envelopes, which contain flour, baking powder, and other white substances,
are being sent by disturbed individuals who seem to want to keep people
unbalanced and fearful. Their actions cause costly testing and unspeakable
fear. Yet little ahs been said about the copycat anthrax mailings because we
are so busy wondering if Osama bin Laden is directing the anthrax scare.
Absent analysis, the T-shirt waving, bull’s eye emblazoning whips up "team
spirit" much as a mascot’s dance does at a football game. Perhaps we need
the relief and levity of hating bin Laden and demonizing him, but the
shorthand we are using seems to trivialize our current situation. Buildings
have toppled, millions are frightened, and we think we are offering
resistance by wiping our behinds with our enemy’s image? Give me a break!
But the anti-bin Laden mobilization also fuels our sense of emergency, our
sense that extraordinary measures must be taken to capture bin Laden.
Our symbolism encourages conformity in thinking, an implicit censorship that
has pushed different and divergent groups off the national stage.
Politically Incorrect host Bill Maher was bumped off the airwaves for a few
nights when he said that long-distance bombing is cowardly. Cartoonist Aaron
McGruder was dropped from a few papers when he tried to broaden the
definition of terrorist in his strip. Others have been vilified simply for
raising questions in a simplistic way that suggests if you have questions,
you must have sided with the popular monster.
While some folks are demonizing Osaum bin Laden for fun and profit, others
understand that he is but one of many terrorists who have pledged to topple
our nation because they hate us. It is dangerous to think that we can
simplify bin Laden by reducing him to a T-shirt or toilet paper. It may
provide is with short-term relief, but no long-term solution to the fear that
has come creeping into our lives.