Osama today, Islam tomorrow: a new chapter of Islamophobia?

To return to the conflation of the historical figure Geronimo with that of the demise of bin Laden, it appears that the link is a recasting of historical confrontations as an American triumphalism over both external and internal enemies. Additionally, akin to Muslim efforts to ‘save’ Islam from the’ terror’ of bin Laden, is the Native American’s offense at such an association - revealing the appropriation of both indigenous and Muslim narratives in bolstering an American-centric account of history.

At stake here is more than the question of political correctness. There is no appropriate way to associate the name of a man, Geronimo, who fought against the conquest of his land to the death, to the operation to kill or capture Osama. Instead we should be putting the focus back on U.S. hegemony and how the resistance to that domination is being appropriated and retold.

Offering the death of Osama as a long awaited blessing in the bumpy relationship between Islam and the West is short-sighted at best. This is why the sad acknowledgement by the U.S. administration that terrorism will not go away with the death of Osama can be read as a silent recognition that the problem transcends one man and his irrational resentment of the West.

More than ever, the incessant personification of resistance to Western foreign policy in the ‘demonic’ figure of Osama, or the countless insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan attributed to his ‘version’ of Islam, continue to function to depoliticise the real world consequences of centuries long imperialist interventions in to the Middle East.