The horrific thing about Osama bin Laden was that he helped to kill thousands of innocent people throughout the world. But he was also in a strange way a godsend to the west. He simplified the world. When communism collapsed in 1989, the big story that had been hardwired into citizens of western countries – that of the global battle against a distant dark and evil force – came to an abrupt end. Understanding the world became much more complicated until, amid the confusion of a global economic crisis in 1998 and the hysterical spectacle of the Monica Lewinsky affair, Bin Laden emerged as the mastermind behind the bombings of embassies in east Africa.
President Clinton immediately seized on it. He fired off cruise missiles, they missed, and everyone accused Clinton of using Bin Laden to take the heat off himself. But if you look back at some of the pieces television reporters did that day in Washington, you can see something else too: the murky shape of an old story slowly re-emerging, like a wreck rising up from the sea.
Illustration: Peter Till
Bin Laden and his ideological mentor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, talked about "the near enemy" and the "far enemy". But from 2001 onwards they became America's "far enemy". Neoconservative politicians, who had last tasted real power under President Reagan during the cold war, took the few known facts about Bin Laden and Zawahiri and fitted them to the template they knew so well: an evil enemy with sleeper cells and "tentacles" throughout the world, whose sole aim was the destruction of western civilisation. Al-Qaida became the new Soviet Union, and in the process Bin Laden became a demonic, terrifyingly powerful figure brooding in a cave while he controlled and directed the al-Qaida network throughout the world. In this way, a serious but manageable terrorist threat became grossly exaggerated.
Journalists, many of whom also yearned for the simplicity of the old days, grabbed at this: from the outset, the reporting of the Islamist terror threat was distorted to reflect this dominant simplified narrative. And Bin Laden grabbed at it too. As the journalists who actually met him report, he was brilliant at publicity. All three – the neoconservatives, the "terror journalists", and Bin Laden himself – effectively worked together to create a dramatically simple story of looming apocalypse. It wasn't in any way a conspiracy. Each of them had stumbled in their different ways on a simplified fantasy that fitted with their own needs.
The power of this simple story propelled history forward. It allowed the neocons – and their liberal interventionist allies – to set out to try to remake the world and spread democracy. It allowed revolutionary Islamism, which throughout the 1990s had been failing dramatically to get the Arab people to rise up and follow its vision, to regain its authority. And it helped to sell a lot of newspapers.
But because we, and our leaders, retreated into a Manichean fantasy, we understood the new complexities of the real world even less. Which meant that we completely ignored what was really going on in the Arab world.
As journalists and Predator drones searched for the different al-Qaida "brands" across the regions, and America propped up dictators who promised to fight the "terror network", a whole new generation emerged in the Middle East who wanted to get rid of the dictators. The revolutions that this led to came as a complete shock to the west. We have no idea, really, who the revolutionaries are or what, if any, ideologies are driving them. But it is becoming abundantly clear that they have nothing to do with "al-Qaida". Yet ironically they are achieving one of Bin Laden's main goals – to get rid of the "near enemy", dictators such as Hosni Mubarak.
One of the main functions of politicians – and journalists – is to simplify the world for us. But there comes a point when – however much they try – the bits of reality, the fragments of events, won't fit into the old frame.
The death of Bin Laden may be that point for the simplified story of goodies versus baddies. It was a story born in the US and Britain at the end of the second world war – the "good war". It then went deep into the western imagination during the cold war, was reawakened and has been held together over the last 10 years by the odd alliance of American and European politicians, journalists, "terror experts" and revolutionary Islamists all seeking to shore up their authority in a disillusioned age.
Barack Obama seems to be rejecting this story already. The Europeans still cling to it, though, with the return of "liberal interventionism" in Libya, but it is anxious and halfhearted.
But it is in Afghanistan that the story is really falling apart. We are beginning to realise that this simplification has led to completely unreal fantasies about who we are really fighting. Fantasies that only persist because they justify our presence there. For the fundamental problem with this simple story of good versus evil is that it does not permit a proper critical framework that allows you to properly judge not only those you are fighting, but also your allies.
America and the coalition invaded Afghanistan with the simple aim of destroying the terror camps and setting up a democracy that would allow the country to be ruled by good people. But in the ensuing decade they have been tricked, spun round and deceived by the complex web of vested interests there. And their inability to understand and deal with this has led to the rise of a state crippled by corruption in which it is impossible to know who the "good" people might be any longer.
Meanwhile President Harmid Karzai has immediately pointed out that Bin Laden's killing proves that the real terrorist threat is in Pakistan – and the fight against terror in his country is a fantasy. But we also know that much of what Karzai says may also be the fantasies he uses to justify the growing power of the small elite around him. And so Afghanistan becomes a hall of mirrors – except the one thing everyone agreed on was that Bin Laden wasn't there.
With Bin Laden's death maybe the spell is broken. It does feel that we are at the end of a way of looking at the world that makes no real sense any longer. But the big question is where will the next story come from? And who will be the next baddie? The truth is that the stories are always constructed by those who have the power. Maybe the next big story won't come from America. Or possibly the idea that America's power is declining is actually the new simplistic fantasy of our age.
Comments in chronological order (Total 588 comments)
3 May 2011 5:57PM
I wouldn't worry pal.
There are still plenty of arseholes ready to step up to the plate.
3 May 2011 6:00PM
For 10 years, Osama bin Laden filled a gap left by the Soviet Union. Who will be the baddie now?
Simon Cowell.
3 May 2011 6:00PM
Nick Clegg?
3 May 2011 6:01PM
Why are you asking this question?
Your boogeyman is stiil the The United States, isn't it?
3 May 2011 6:01PM
Hamas, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood for a start.
3 May 2011 6:01PM
It's so much easier to be against something than for something isn't it? And if that something is scary and frightening so much the better to rally everyone against it. Sad thing is, naturalists have observed that baboons can operate at this political level.
3 May 2011 6:02PM
My money's on Hugo Chavez.
3 May 2011 6:02PM
could I ask for just one Guardian article about Bin Ladens death that isn't lecturing and ambivalent?
3 May 2011 6:02PM
Seriously, the boogeyman around here is the United States.
Stop pretending otherwise.
3 May 2011 6:03PM
There will never be a shortage of candidates, there never has been throughout history..........Hopefully the neocons will eat each other and leave the rest of us alone.
3 May 2011 6:03PM
Glenn Beck.
3 May 2011 6:04PM
Fred Phelps
3 May 2011 6:04PM
Anarchists.
3 May 2011 6:07PM
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3 May 2011 6:11PM
'One of the main functions of politicians – and journalists – is to simplify the world for us'
Perhaps giving people credit for a brain and reporting the truth and balanced opionion might be a new starting point for your main function.
'But the big question is where will the next story will come from? And who will be the next baddie? The truth is that the stories are always constructed by those who have the power'
Don't you see it as your job to bloody find out the truth - isn't that the point of your being a journalist?
3 May 2011 6:11PM
Is this article trying to suggest that the Soviet Union and Al-Quaeda were not that bad?
3 May 2011 6:11PM
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3 May 2011 6:14PM
The USA is an ideological state so it raison d'etre requires a bogeyman. It's had Britain, Spain, France, Cuba, the USSR, Bin Laden and the muslims. It will find another, if it can't find another, it will create one. It's the old Strausian philosphy of keeping the population in fear and hence in its place.
3 May 2011 6:15PM
Rich1991
Of course! The next bogeyman will be the Chinese.
3 May 2011 6:17PM
The men who are or are likely to be the leaders of violent Islamic groups, including new leader of Al Quaida.
The fact that America or some journalists set up a "hate-figure" does not mean that the figure is not genuinely hateful.
3 May 2011 6:19PM
David Icke could lead a brand new counter culture within the west. I'm not kidding about that. A new counter culture is rapidly taking shape.
Externally our principle enemy will probably be totalitarian theocracy.
3 May 2011 6:20PM
Pathetic delusional idiocy. One would have thought 9-11 never happened from reading this.
Thats him talking about the rest of us, but it's far better aimed at himself.
Indeed, fantasies about how the real enemy is the CIA, and how they set this whole thing up. Fantasies about how the taliban are all ok really, and don't throw acid in the face of school girls.
Yep, the simplicity of considering the USA and the West no better than the Soviet Union, the simplicity whereby US interests could be elided in with apartheid South Africa, where it was ok to hate the filthy Yanqis.
Some journalists lapped this narrative up, and were delighted to have a chance to repeat it.
However, it did of course mean taking an idiotic conspiract theory seriously, which is why many left wing, anti American journalists have rejected Mr Curtis' crappy ideas.
Even Sheamus Milne at his rantiest, for example, isn't stoooooooooopid enough to agree with this guy. He knows if he did, he would lose a lot of credibility.
This bollocks is 9-11 trufferism for people who clean their socks regularly, a mini-grand conspiracy, for people who hate the west, but can't quite bring themselves to become trots, they've too much to lose.
3 May 2011 6:20PM
Iran ...
3 May 2011 6:20PM
"Who will be the baddie now?"
Anwar Al-Awlaki will be the far enemy. The near enemy can be Kilroy.
3 May 2011 6:21PM
I don't believe our next major enemy will be China.
We need them and they need us. I appreciate that Germany's principle trading partner in 1939 was France and that their principle trading partner in 1940 was the Soviet Union but in a world of totalitarian theocrats we will have plenty in common with them.
And their economy is going to tank if the US Dollar crashes.
3 May 2011 6:21PM
I remember hearing about the peace dividend after the collapse of Communism in 1989. It was short lived because of the attempt to blow up the twin towers in 1993, followed by more attacks.
Bin laden will be replaced by another Islamic extremist, simply because they have nothing better to do.
3 May 2011 6:22PM
Its always best to scan Cif articles for use of words like 'neo-con', as this usually tells you everything you need to know about the position being taken.
No surprise that the first word below the headline here is 'neo-conservatives' - but then the author works for the BBC.
3 May 2011 6:22PM
Russia never went away...
3 May 2011 6:22PM
Russia might turn bad again and then we've always got Iran and North Korea.
Plenty of good reasons to keep our nuclear deterrent.
3 May 2011 6:23PM
I remember a lot of talk in 1990 about Japan being America's next enemy.
Then they went bust and have been struggling along since.
China today has a lot in common with Japan in 1990.
3 May 2011 6:23PM
You mean like the extreme irrational delusional left, having 'lost' South Africa as a rallying point 17 years ago now turn on the one Western Liberal Democracy in the Middle East and seek to legitimize it?
3 May 2011 6:25PM
RedDick
I can think of a lot of countries who would just love to be 'struggling along' like Japan. Even with the Tsunami.
3 May 2011 6:27PM
Agree 100% with the content of this article and for those people who are bitching about it go and read some Chomsky and then shut the fuck up.
3 May 2011 6:27PM
Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Bacon
3 May 2011 6:28PM
"They haven't gone away, you know!"
3 May 2011 6:29PM
Not enough good people?
We didn't have to wait that long for a folk devil when AGW was waiting in the wings.
BTW, I've been meaning to ask, Andrew Simms made it to 70 months and counting and then . . . . .
Why no 69 and 68 months to save the planet?
3 May 2011 6:29PM
There seems to be an implied statement here that, if somebody is thought to be a 'baddie', that means that they are not a 'baddie'. On the whole, I find the Yanks are quite content if nobody provokes them.
3 May 2011 6:29PM
Looks who's simplifying now.
The story was not born after the second world war but is as old as man.
In the UK it used to be the Papists and the Spanish, then the French, then the Germans, then the Russians.
Nor is this tendency to identify convenient bogeymen the preserve of powerful right-wing elites as the writer suggests.
The left has its own irrational bogeymen - the US, Israel, and now also bankers, not to mention poor old Nick Clegg.
3 May 2011 6:30PM
The choice is obvious, Alex Ferguson.
3 May 2011 6:30PM
good article spot on about so many things.
I think the neo-cons have a new cartoon crayon enemy all lined up.
The new enemies of the state are (peversely) anyone who cares about the services the state provides, its structure and democratic accountability.
The right wing trolls froth ever and over about the enemy within - the grey unseen hand of left wing bogey men who are somwhow hindering the proper and just dismantling of the grey oppressive democratic institutions which they find to be such a nuisance.
The new terror cells are apparantly comprised of nurses, social workers, meals on wheels services and especially protestors.
Care for the sick and the vulnerable is the new oppression which must be opposed.
Exploitation of the weak and poor is the new freedom which must be defended.
Anyone who tries to prevent the break up of social cohesion and support structures is now an enemy. Corporations must be allowed to do what they like unhindered by the grey machinations of the evil do-ers.
Anyone who cares much beyond anything that isn't jingoism and cheering on the rich need not look for the neocons new enemy - just look in the mirror.
3 May 2011 6:31PM
That America's power is waning is definitely true and that is the great legacy of bin Laden. He has hurt the USA more financially than in other ways but that is where it hurts. 9/11 led to no interest charges which led to sub prime which led to bank bust and property bust and the financial mess in which we are all mired. The only people now who will buy US government bonds are the Chinese...now the good guys..well goodish anyway. Simply put this means Obama cannot fart without the Chinese approving it. However the military/industrial complex in the USA needs a baddie and consequent wars. I reckon they will assassinate Obama in the next year before he can win a second tern and have it blamed on an al Q'aida reprisal. John F. Kennedf all over again. kennedy remember was a PR genius just like Obama and the American "right" pinned his killing on the Russian/Cubans. Who the "baddie" will be after Obama has been eliminated is anybody's guess. It will certainly have to be someone who does not enjoy Russian or Chinese backing. And of course when finances are low, baddies can be overlooked. The world is changing. That is not a fantasy. bin Laden has his legacy. 9/11 did actually change the world but not in the way it was reported at the time. Military power may still rest with Obama but financial power does not and one is little use without the other. The Americans will never regain their financial power. Not alone has bin Laden dealt them a mortal blow in this respect, the Chinese juggernaut simply cannot be stopped. They simply have too big a population to be prevented from becoming the new financial superpower in the world. Population is everything in this respect and they have it in spades. They may turn out to be as obnoxious in their abuse of power as the Americans. They certainly seems to have many of the same characteristics. Ignorance about the rest of the world, insularity, materialism to a huge degree, hung up on brands etc.etc. Europe has a great deal to offer the world, but sadly we seem to prefer top hang on to the coat tails of the Americans. A true, independent, European view of the world needs to be formed and formed quickly. otherwise we will simply replace one set of powerful but poorly educated idiots for another. Am I optimistic? Certainly not. As long as we are ruled by short sighted, unimaginative clowns like Cameron, Sarkozy et al nothing will change. Who will the next "baddie" be. It might well be an internal figure in the United States. There is massive disappointment in Obama among the blacks and urban and rural poor. At the moment they have no radical leaders. They foolishly thought the neo-con Obama would be their saviour but now they may well look for a real radical and he/she may be the next "baddie" for the American blue collar "intellegensia".
3 May 2011 6:31PM
MajorWinters.
Not sure what you are getting at.
I have read Chomsky. He's an interesting enough person but he isn't the oracle.
Most of the comments have been light hearted.
The point many people have made is that there will always be rivals to any power super or otherwise.
3 May 2011 6:32PM
"For 10 years, Osama bin Laden filled a gap left by the Soviet Union"
Actually it was Iraq and Saddam who initially filled that gap !
Next ?
Oceania, Eastasia or Eurasia ?
Another poignant example from Orwell's prophylactic work 1984
Style of thing
3 May 2011 6:32PM
This whole 'we need an enemy to define us' thing is very reminiscent of Carl Schmitt and the Nazi regime.
It's also inaccurate given how the Soviet Union and Islamist terrorism threaten the West - we didn't create these bugaboos (at least, not directly), though as Eisenhower warned there are people in our society happy to use them to their own economic and political advantage. They're the ones we need to watch out for.
3 May 2011 6:33PM
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3 May 2011 6:33PM
The 'bad guys' have to be big and bad enough to be frightening, but not so big that they can't be defeated eventually after several costly wars. I think that rules out China.
3 May 2011 6:33PM
Stop looking abroad for the answer and you might just find it.
The traditional baddie is the foreign spook figure used to justify means in 'us v them' political manoeuvring. Nowadays that position has been taken by the delinquent, the hoody, the drug addict and the prostitute.
Dangerous too it is because politicians can justify their zero-tolerance policies, police states, camera surveillance and no one is likely to join the criminals in defending their way of life.
3 May 2011 6:35PM
Neoconservative politicians, who had last tasted real power under President Reagan during the cold war, took the few known facts about Bin Laden and Zawahiri and fitted them to the template they knew so well: an evil enemy with sleeper cells...
They did have sleeper cells.
They carried out attacks all over the world
That was, at least, one of their aims.
In spite of this, the narrative you invoke is your own invention. Some of the media did exaggerate threats. Most didn't. The vast, vast majority of people were not the suggestible sheep you describe, but carried on with their daily lives quietly, as they have always done. Such people did not need some 'other' to hate/ fear. They still don't.
You and people like you, however, clearly need to invent this narrative in order to create your own 'other' to hate and fear.
3 May 2011 6:36PM
Morrisey
3 May 2011 6:38PM
Well they've still got Iran and North Korea on the back burner. One thing is for sure a new bogeyman will be found soon - in all probability an old ' munitions customer' of theirs. But found he must be - the arms industry demands it.