Watching Others Watching
Osama bin Laden has been killed and what do we get to see? A group of distinguished spectators watching an invisible screen. Vice President Joe Biden is close to the screen. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seen covering her mouth with her hand, perhaps in horror. President-elect Barack Obama is leaning forward. A New York City subway newspaper has speculated that this was “the moment the president watched bin Laden die.” The visibility of an event has been replaced by the image of a group of officials who are watching what is invisible to us.
Bin Laden’s death is one of this year’s major events. Transpiring less than a week after the British Royal Wedding, it reveals the futility of the London bash. It reminds us that from time to time there are events that are truly historic, events that end a period of intellectual and affective unrest. Yet, there is something puzzling about the death of bin Laden. Important events tend to be visible. Can we believe in their magnitude if visibility is missing? In fact, can we believe they truly happened? Why do we feel short-changed, almost disappointed, waiting for the rest of the event to occur? Perhaps because bin Laden’s death was a deed but not a discourse, a blow but not an expressive event. Or perhaps we are not used to events that are both blind and mute.
A Blind Event
In the absence of images, testimonies and narratives curiously vacillate. They start to stutter. During the raid, bin Laden attempted to resist and was shot in the head. Bin Laden threatened the American commandos with a gun and was shot in the head. Bin Laden hid behind a woman, using her as a human shield, and was shot in the head. Bin Laden’s wife rushed the assaulter and was shot in the leg. Bin Laden was unarmed but shot and killed.
Here is another example of an indecisive account. “Bin Laden was buried at the North Arabian Sea from the deck of a US aircraft carrier at 2 am EST after having been washed following Islamic custom and receiving a religious funeral.” Military sources said that “his body was washed before being covered in a white sheet and religious remarks, translated into Arabic by a native speaker, were read over bin Laden’s corpse.” Counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan has confirmed “the burial of bin Laden’s remains was done in strict conformance with Islamist precepts and practices.” Yet, Reuters introduces a dissonant version by reporting, “Special Forces set out to kill Osama bin Laden and dump his body in the sea.”
Let me note that the description of the ritual seems a bit surreal. Muslim blessings do not need to be translated into Arabic as they already are in Arabic. As a comparison, a sentence from Harry Potter would not turn into a Catholic rite, if translated into Latin by a “native.” Also, if Abbottabad is about 30 miles from Islamabad, the only sea to be found is at the other end of the country. This makes a sea-burial highly unusual, as Islamic custom requires the death to have taken place on a ship. Even then, a land burial is the preferred option. By the way, three other men and one woman were also killed during the raid. Where these, presumably Muslim people buried at sea as well?
So, was it a funeral, a burial or a dumping? Was it a body, or remains? Was bin Laden threatening the soldiers or hiding behind his wife? The dangerous bin Laden must have brandished a weapon. The coward bin Laden must have hidden behind a woman. In the absence of pictures, connotations overpower descriptions; testimonies turn into first hand rumors. One role of pictures consists of harmonizing eyewitness reports, in validating denotation, in eliminating the temptations of legend. Pictures do not replace narratives; they stabilize them. Yet, can this current major historical turning point merely consist of the pictures we got: a bed with scattered pillows and rumpled sheets, reddish stains on a carpeted floor, the medications and pill boxes of an aging recluse?
Possibly, the corpse of bin Laden is too gruesome to be shown, which could be inflammatory. Nevertheless, various media have offered us substitutes. The bloodstained face of a man that was pasted over an old photograph showing bin Laden’s mouth and beard was widely distributed on the Internet. Too static? Here is something livelier: A Nintendo team taking agile steps and making simplified gestures, breaks into bin Laden’s toy house. It is a brightly colored animation show involving martial dancers, a death mask. We are only one step away from Sicilian popular theater in which puppets reenacted strikingly similar events. In the absence of images, we get mythical scenography. Aren’t images more sober?
A Mute Event
In the strategic realm, the former Saudi millionaire no longer made much of a difference. Perhaps he had never made a big difference, except as the product of Western journalism that needed to put a face on a political movement. Just like in pop music, the disappearance of one group only leads to the proliferation of others. Osama is dead. Vive someone else. In other terms, the event only matters on the symbolic level.
As a symbolic event, the death of bin Laden ends a ten year parenthesis. It gives a sense of closure, completing what was perceived as unresolved business. It mends a gaping wound. However, is this really what bin Laden’s death has done? No! The symbolic importance of this event has been begrudged. As an “expressive event,” it would not only have provided a powerful editorializing of the meanings of what happened during the last ten years, it would also have organized an “abreaction” of the original event (9/11) and a way to symbolically declare the trauma over. This is precisely what has been missing. Despite a visit to ground zero and laconic statements about justice rendered, the event has been stripped of its expressive dimension.
One can understand the reasons that guided the decision to make bin Laden’s death an a-symbolic event. A ceremony of any kind would have to make strong statements. Such statements would hurt sensitivities; lead to reactions proportioned to the visibility of the event and would serve as “incitements to further violence.” A gruesome photograph of bin Laden’s destroyed face would unavoidably deliver an “imperial” message. Like the decapitated heads exhibited on poles by monarchs of earlier times, it would rapidly become an icon, a cult object, a Middle Eastern replica of the Che Guevara photograph. Yet, how can a symbolic event be devoid of any heightening of visibility? How can an expressive event be conducted behind closed doors? Can you just whisper that a page in history has been turned?
Imperial symbolism is what Obama wants to avoid at all costs. However, ironically, avoiding visibility only enhances the high-handed brutality of the killing. Bin Laden was shot without trial. American soldiers breached the sovereignty of Pakistan and assassinated him. Avoiding a trial may have a pragmatic dimension: not offering a target for terrorist retaliations, blackmail, kidnappings and ransoms. If there would have been a trial, bin Laden could have turned the tables and put the USA on trial. The result would have been an exchange of arguments, a display of reasons (good or bad), a “disputatio.” Yet avoiding a trial means avoiding the rule of law. Mengele and Eichmann had a trial. In the case of bin Laden, the trial was skipped. Ironically, the absence of a trial takes the president back to what his presidency was meant to avoid: the War on Terror.
Event as Searchlight
In addition to the invisibility of the attack, the invisibility of the corpse and the invisibility of the burial, the absence of a trial offered a fourth invisibility, an even more serious one, the invisibility of judicial process and of law. Despite this litany of invisibilities, the death of bin Laden has acted like a magnifier or a searchlight. It has pointed to the Pakistani situation, revealing a mixture of duplicity (the Pakistani army protecting those it received billions to combat) and incompetence (the same Pakistani army never reacting to an incursion on Pakistani territory). It pointed to the feelings of the Pakistani man in the street. Randomly chosen inhabitants of Abbottabad expressed their anger at the killing of bin Laden, their intention to pray for him, their view of him as a holy man. Such images were quite telling. They spoke of a quiet consensus among the Pakistani population. Of course, none of this is really a scoop. However, our knowledge of this ambivalence was in a way peripheral. It took the form of uneasiness, of doubts about the ally-enemy. After this event, it seems difficult to go on with the Chiaroscuro. The sadness of the Abbottabad mourners and the mere counting of miles between bin Laden’s mansion and the Pakistani capital are irrefutable. In this case, we have maps and images.
Leave a Reply