In Arab World, Bin Laden’s Confused Legacy

There’s a vast disconnect between the Middle East’s uprisings – a quest for democracy – and rigid religious controls promised by Al Qaeda. An operation, authorized by US President Barack Obama, tracked Osama bin Laden to a compound in Pakistan, killing the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington. For youthful Arab populations, the events that put bin Laden on a global most-wanted list a decade ago are irrelevant to their goals. “Bin Laden was an echo of a bygone era, riven by ossifying divides between West and East, American omnipotence and Arab weakness, dictatorship and powerlessness,” report Anthony Shadid and David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times. Autocratic rulers have long used the threat from the fugitive and terrorism to justify their own brutal controls. Now they face citizens throughout the Middle East who largely refuse to be distracted from their goal of using non-violent means to win control of their own governments. – YaleGlobal