Osama bin Laden in Nigeria

The Lagos-Abuja bound Albarka Airline at Maiduguri International Airport was already boarding. Inside the aircraft, I met this well dressed dark looking old man wearing glasses and in blue brocade sitting in one of the row of seats adjacent to the emergency exits in the middle of the Aircraft. There were six seats of three each facing one another, so that three passengers sitting on one row could be facing the other three passengers opposite.

They were the one of the only two sets of face me I face you kind of seat in the aircraft. If you happened to sit on the left side row of the aircraft but immediately behind those peculiar seats, you could see clearly the three passengers on the right side facing you. I met this old man engrossed in his book reading. He was one of the earliest to board. I sat in one of the two seaters on the left and I had a very clear view of the man on the three seaters facing my direction. The remaining five seats two to his right, three opposite him remained unoccupied. Five minutes later three middle aged Pakistanis entered the Aircraft. They went straight for the seats beside and opposite the old man.

One sat beside him and two sat opposite him. Immediately, they took their seats. The old man suddenly closed the book he was reading. He became edgy. He was no longer comfortable. You could see fear on his face. Unfortunately for him, the one who sat next to him was restless and boisterous. After taking his seat, he stood up again first went towards the pilot cabin probably looking for the toilet, the old man turned his head to follow his movement, and when the man was directed to where the toilet was at the back, the old man kept looking in his direction. At a time he had to raise his head to have a clearer view as he walked down the aircraft corridor. The man soon came back to his seat to join in the conversation with his fellow nationals in Pakistani language. You could see on the man's face that the more the three men discussed, the more he became uncomfortable shifting from left to right on his seat several times.

Soon, we were airborne. That could only increase the man's fear. Time for in-flight entertainment Sandwich, coffee, tea or water. He took none. His apprehension could only increase when the restless of the three would not keep sitting, as he stood up to stretch his leg near the seat while conversing with his colleagues. One hour fifteen minutes later, we got to Abuja, these Pakistanis did not get down. The man was disappointed when 30 minutes later were airborne again to Lagos. Another 50 minutes of discomfort. Finally, you could see the relief in the man's face, when the aircraft finally taxied on the Lagos tarmac, and the doors were open. When we finally disembarked, I quickly ran up to the man and asked him why he felt so uncomfortable throughout the duration of the aircraft.

His reply: "So you saw me, These Osama bin Laden people, you never can be too sure where they would be." We both laughed and bid each other bye.

Yet that was not the first experience. At the Maiduguri International Hotel, the previous night, I was engaged in a discussions with some friends at the Hotel lobby, when two Asians, I wouldn't know if they were Indians or Pakistanis or even Lebanese walked in. Then one of my friends whispered, "the Osama bin Ladens are around, take cover."

Elsewhere, the story is the same. This is the high season of suspicion. Every Arab, Pakistani, Indian, Lebanese, Algerian, and Palestine is now a potential terrorist. There is a religious dimension to it as well. Every fair skinned Moslem is now a potential terrorist. Before September 11, the international political establishment was covertly anti-Islam. Since that date when those satanic attackers shattered the peace of America, international politics has become overtly anti-Islam. Arab - Americans no longer feel safe. Mosques are no longer secure in the United States. An Indian petrol station owner was shot dead for being mistaken for an Arab. Last week, on American North-West Airline, the other passengers refused to board an Aircraft because of the presence of three Arab passengers. Similarly, over the weekend, the pilots of American Delta Airlines politely asked a Pakistani first class passenger to get down as they did not feel safe flying with him around. This is what the horrendous terrorist attack has wrought on the world. It has only provoked more hatred, intolerance and perhaps racism. It has thus turned the hand of progress backward.

One would have wished that the suicide attackers were around to see the world of hate they have created. Simply visiting their genocide on many innocent people. These were women, children, tourists people trying to make a living. People who might not have cared about world politics, not even their national politics, have become the victims of such politics. They have paid a supreme price for what they knew nothing about. Any of those persons could have been you or me. Any of us could have been visiting World Trade Centre or a passenger in one of those aircrafts. This is why every reasonably man in this world must never support terrorism. Every reasonable man must join in the war to eliminate the scourge and every reasonable man who cares for his future must do whatever he can to ensure that he does not give a hiding place to these fatalists and extremists. To lose over five thousands people in one single attack without using conventional weapon of war can only go to show how unsafe we all are.

It is within this context that we may understand the call for vengeance and punishments by the United States and its European allies for the perpetrators of the heinous acts. They must be fished out and brought to justice. This is why they need the support of every country in this crusade. However, in seeking justice and punishment, it is doubtful whether even if the whole of Afghanistan is reduced to rubbles, we will still all walk or travel safely. This is because the way the whole exercise is being pursued by American and European leaders and their media, may never solve the problem. What we hear from their statements are simply songs of revenge, punishment plus the beating of drums of war by the media. So much that the world is now divided into two. Those who support the war and those against. And as Mr. Bush put it in his Congressional address, you are either for us or you are with the terrorists. No neutral. If you tune in to CNN, it is to hear the news of the latest country that has joined to offer its base for an attack on Afghanistan.

In the ensuing propaganda, there is discrimination bordering on which of the dead ones are more important than the other. While the African media led by Nigeria and South Africa have been unreservedly supportive of the American efforts, the CNN and other media have relegated the lives of African victims of the terrorist attack to the background. Despite overwhelming evidence of the loss of life of many Africans out of which 94 are Nigerians, the CNN in listing the probable numbers of victim per country, did not mention a single African country. Apart from United States and European countries listed, the other countries mentioned were Pakistan, India, Russia, Koreans, Japanese, Kuwait, Iran, and Turkey, simply because the allied forces would need these countries to stage attack on Afghanistan. The Africans are not important here. After all, their lives have always been a cheap one so having more dead is of little consequence. Yet Africa remains the best potential haven for terrorists to hide now that the world powers are about launching the wars of their own.

Still, the most significant is the fact that none of these powers that be and the media is addressing the root cause of such calamity. What could have led to a group of young men embarking on the suicidal hijack of passenger jets only to crash them on a civilian population? What kind of society breeds terrorism? And why? These are issues that urgently deserve attention, if we want to make the world a safer place.

If you ask me, these questions would not bother President George Bush given the current hysteria. He is one man who believes in cowboy solution to things. But if the truth must be told, his actions and policies since coming to power have only contributed to the rise in terrorism. His attitude to the Middle East crisis is not only arrogant, but biased and tendentious. He appears to live in a cold war era. He can't bear himself to the reality of new era of reconciliation among longtime enemies in the world.

If the Koreans, the Vietnamese and Americans, the Chinese and Taiwanese, the white and black South Africans, the Northern Irish are trying to build a rapprochement, why can't the Israelis and Palestines also do so? At least this is what former President Bill Clinton and his team were trying to do for the Middle East before Mr. Bush came in with a renewed right-wing agenda. The Americans after the mourning and the search for the perpetrators are completed must call Mr. Bush and his hawkish team to order as his actions and policies, can only continue to make the world unsafe for all of us.