Arab world is too busy to react to bin Laden's death

The day after Osama bin Laden was shot and killed in Pakistan, America's newspapers were lit up by a thousand images of the man.

In contrast to the straight reporting from most of the world's press, there was an unashamed triumphalism from much of the American media, and especially news channels.

"Justice has been done" led the Washington Post, with an image of revellers celebrating bin Laden's death outside the White House. "Amid Cheers, a Message: They will be Caught" sang the New York Times' front page. Sober analysis gave way to cheerleading, reflecting the mood on the street.

The reception in the wider Middle East was more muted, especially from governments wary of being seen to celebrate a triumph in a war that wasn't theirs. The European press also reported the event in a straightforward manner, but the collective shrug from the Arab world needs explanation, given how much the region has been affected by bin Laden's actions.

Indeed, the legacy of the September 11, 2001 attacks has not yet ended in the wider Middle East. As much as the Arab Spring has shaken off the narrative of al Qa'eda, what followed the September 11 attacks in the region is far from over.

The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the consequent destabilisation of both regions, remain active concerns.

For the families of the thousands who died in the terrorist attacks a decade ago, the length of time has offered some balm. It took US forces so many years to find bin Laden that most of the families of the victims of September 11 have been forced to move on, without closure. They have remarried, started new families, found ways to put their grief behind them.

The killing of bin Laden draws an emotional line under a tragedy that will define their lives, even if it makes only a small difference from day to day. To be able to look at a photograph of a loved one and say, finally, "We got the man who did this to you", is not an insignificant thing.

For families of victims in the region, such an ending is not possible, not yet. For the families of the dead in Iraq, for those left scarred by Abu Ghraib, for the Iraqi refugees enduring a long wait to go home, for those facing a wall of silence after their loved ones were killed by air strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan: for all of these people, there is no ending, no one event that can bring them justice.

For hundreds of thousands of individuals across the Middle East and South Asia, nothing can bring back the family members taken by war, and there is little chance of closure for them.

Politically, the legacy of September 11 is still barely apparent, even a decade on. The unravelling of Iraq and its attendant enabling of the rise of Iran may well have repercussions for decades. The unleashing of tensions between Sunnis and Shias may yet be the next defining story of the Middle East.

Osama bin Laden's death was never going to be as important an event for Arabs as it was for Americans. Bin Laden's central position in the US narrative was assured once he was identified as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks and once the early "war on terror" was framed as a Manichean struggle.

In the Arab world, such a dualistic view of the world never caught on. With its many countries and tricky political landscape, that was a black and white view of the world in a region of political shades of grey. But bin Laden was America's bogeyman, and they finally woke up from their nightmare.

Even the subsequent stories from the raid in Abbottabad have elicited a shrug from Arab publics. The real story of what happened that night won't be known definitively for some time: the US administration has blunderingly altered its version several times; the Pakistani government has issued barely credible denials. The whereabouts of bin Laden's wife, of the courier that led the Americans to him, of the other family apparently in residence at the Abbottabad mansion; all of these remain unknown.

The Obama administration is now selectively releasing images and information to frame an expedient narrative at home, mainly for a domestic audience that is enraptured and an international audience that is barely listening.

Bin Laden's death has passed from the news cycle into the realm of propaganda, and thus the rest of the world can be forgiven a shrug.

Yet the clearest reason why the region is little interested in bin Laden's death is that it is occupied elsewhere.

The day after bin Laden was killed, the front of the international Asharq Al-Awsat led with the story of Syrian troops attacking the city of Deraa, with the al Qa'eda's chief's killing relegated to second place. That explains the collective shrug: closer to home, there are more pressing concerns, more unfinished business.

The Arabs have no time to shed tears of joy over bin Laden's death, when they are still shedding blood for their freedom.

falyafai@thenational.ae