Many exalt bin Laden as a hero

President Bush calls Osama bin Laden “the Evil One” and exhorts the Taliban regime in Kabul to “cough him up.”

But in Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim world, hundreds of newborns are being named in his honor.

Bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, has become a symbol of the gap between much of the world of Islam and the West.

In the West, his photograph is at the top of the most wanted list. In Pakistan and the Middle East, posters of bin Laden astride a white stallion, wearing a white turban and brandishing a gleaming sword, decorate the walls of admirers.

`Contrasting images’

Among Westerners, he has become the scourge who ruined a care-free way of life. Among many Muslims, he embodies the spirit of the medieval sultans and caliphs who fought the infidels and carried the banner of Islam into Europe and to the gates of Vienna.

The images of cheering Americans pledging to fight terrorism to the bitter end are perhaps just as chilling for Muslims as are the images for Americans of Muslim protesters wearing bin Laden T-shirts and extolling the virtues of their hero.

The commoner in Pakistan dotes on bin Laden. Even senior Pakistani officials, privately, talk of a Machiavellian conspiracy against Islam and explain that bin Laden is no terrorist but merely embodies the frustrations generated by unresolved issues in the Middle East.

“He did not do this terrible thing you accuse him of,” said a student named Mohamed Khan, echoing the argument most frequently heard in Pakistan. “Where is the proof? It’s always a secret, this evidence of yours. Our government accepted it because it had to.”

Like the anti-globalization movement, which believes the economic and political affairs of the world are concentrated in the hands of a few who manipulate the markets for their own benefit, many Muslims are convinced that bin Laden and his al-Qaida network are victims of a Western plot to blame Muslim terrorism for a plummeting global economy.

In the view of local residents, former President George Bush, closely linked to the U.S. oil industry, ordered the Persian Gulf war to protect America’s oil interests. They argue that his son is now bombarding Afghanistan to pave the way for U.S. oil concessions in the rich Central Asian oil and gas fields.

“I see shady forces behind this attack on the United States,” said former army intelligence chief Gen. Hameed Gul.

On a subcontinent whose people tend to believe what fits their credos, assurances by the West that the war is not against Islam fall on deaf ears.

A carpet merchant named Hassan at the Jinnah bazaar in central Islamabad snapped: “We know that there is a CIA plot to kill all Muslims.”

Naming sons Osama

Those in the West who believe that only a minority of radicals and the poor extol bin Laden may be shocked to know that middle- and upper-class mothers are proudly naming their newborn sons Osama.

“I want my son to be a hero like bin Laden, who is one man against the rest of the world,” said Shazia Mahmood, 26, a day after she had given birth to her first son. “I called him Osama because I want him to be brave like Osama bin Laden.”

Mahmood comes from a well-to-do family. Some of her relatives were educated abroad, wear no fundamentalist beards and would shudder at the thought of joining the anti-American demonstrations in the streets. Yet her ideas are not unusual.

“Osama wants the world to know the wrongs done to Muslims,” she said. Bin Laden’s al-Qaida organization has demanded a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf as a prerequisite for Americans to sleep peacefully.

“If a child whimpers because it wants milk, no one takes any notice. But when the child screams everyone runs to fetch milk,” she said.

Staff at one hospital in Islamabad say dozens of newborns have been named Osama in recent weeks, though no statistics are available because children’s names are officially registered only when they enter school.

The Osama veneration has created a thriving business in Osama T-shirts, posters and postcards. The demand for Osama items is great at the bazaar in Islamabad.

“We are waiting for a new shipment in the next day or two, coming from Quetta and Peshawar. Please come back,” a T-shirt merchant urged. The two Pakistani cities are fundamentalist strongholds.

Bin Laden, wanted “dead or alive” by the United States, has used the air raids on Afghanistan to reinvent himself as a popular warrior at the dawn of Islam. Osama was the name given to the 17-year-old companion of the prophet Muhammad. The prophet, according to history, entrusted the youthful Osama with a military campaign against the infidels.

“Osama, the companion of the prophet and the man in Afghanistan, has many admirers,” said professor Afzel Iqbal, an Islamic scholar. “His image as a lone figure resisting the might of America has made him an idol. People admire those who resist.”