The Geronimo is dead, long live Geronimo (Published on the Hindu on 14-th May,2011)

This article has been (Published on the Hindu on 14-th May,2011)

The symbolism behind the assassination of Osama Bin Laden is bound to be noticed by any interested student of history. First of all, there is great symbolism behind the whole military operation codenamed after Geronimo; Geronimo was the legendary Native-American leader, who had the audacity to challenge the phenomenon of American exceptionalism in the 19-th century. This again tells us how much America is enamored in her own sense of historic symbolism, that it would like to bring back from dead the ghost of its 19-th century nemesis, to tackle its present enemies. In the imagination of 21-st century America, the world is still very much a battle ground between “us and them” or “good guys and bad guys” or to better put it “rednecks and Injuns”. America needs to kill her Geronimo-s in every century to assure herself of her self-declared mission on the World stage.

Another symbolism lies in the mainstream media’s complete avoidance of covering the death of Orlando Bosch in Miami, USA, just two days before the world heard President Obama declaring “gotcha” over Osama. Orlando masterminded a terrorist attack that destroyed a Cuban civilian air liner in 1976, killing 74 passengers on board, including women and children. The fortunate thing for Orlando was that he was fighting Fidel Castro, America’s then enemy no.1 in Latin America, on behalf of the USA. The difference between the death of Orlando and Osama lies in circumstances; whereas Orlando was let to die through completely natural courses, of course Bin Laden was taken out by the Navy SEAL-s as part of America’s normal, righteous justice. This symbolism tells us the fact that even if you happen to be a terrorist; you can die peacefully in your own home at your own bed at a ripe age as long as you happen to be the right kind of terrorist for the sole superpower.

Apart from symbolisms, we can certainly conclude one thing from the assassination of Bin Laden; there will be more America’s Public enemy no.1-s born in the future in the aftermath. The moment that President Obama choose to bring just retribution to Bin Laden is also pretty symbolic, it is a time when the sole superpower in the World is neck deep into debt, the unemployment numbers are soaring and the economic inequality is not showing any signs of coming to an end plus there has been a recent growing surge in the numbers of people in the United States, who believe that the current American president is a secret Muslim who faked his own birth certificate to become the most powerful man in the World. This is the time as a president when you need to show that you can be tough and decisive, and Mr. Obama just did that. Even if he is not able to provide jobs to his people at least he has offered them what they have been dying for since the last decade, the head (read the still to be disclosed footage of the head) of Osama, the 21-st century Geronimo.

We can safely conclude that from now on it is going to be a pattern i.e. any future American president who happens to face a tough situation at home will try to come up with his/her own Geronimo (or Osama) moment. And you can not have a Geronimo moment without a steady flow of would-be Geronimo-s. Already we can see analysts, experts and pundits talking about the new phase in the “War on terror”, possible future candidates as the future head of Al-Qaeda such as Al-Zawahiri, Al-Awlaki or Adam Gadhan being named, states as diverse as China and Iran are being considered as possible future enemies. The various military and intelligence agencies in the US are busy to justify their continuing longing for more budgetary allocations by presenting would-be dooms day scenarios. All this makes it clear; we can bet our bottom dollar that America will be busy in creating and hunting down her future versions of Geronimo-s. America needs to justify regularly to the world and to her own about her self-declared omnipotent exceptionalism. You can not do that without regularly inventing and then destroying those whom you consider as your opponents and enemies towards your ideas. There is no need of Superman if there is no Lex Luother. The Geronimo is dead, long live the Geronimo.