The media and megalomaniacs

Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda has successfully adopted the media as a means for achieving its goals. Exploiting the media as a means of self-promotion is very dangerous. The overconfidence created by media publicity would distort the balanced perception of even a sensible man.

Al-Qaeda has grown in size and power over the past seven years. Its remarkable success in the battle against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan directed international attention to it. However the fame it achieved with the help of propaganda posed a danger to law and order in neighboring countries.

The organization fell into the inevitable pitfall awaiting all those who become megalomaniacs. It has fallen not into a small pit but to a fathomless abyss created by false propaganda. The scenario is very simple. Al-Qaeda’s rise and its inevitable fall are reminiscent of the rise and fall of the Iraqi regime over 10 years ago. Both are the victims of propaganda without substance. Both grew with the support of the United States. While the Iraqi regime was set up against Iran, Al-Qaeda’s role was to drive the Soviets from Afghanistan. Ironically, both Iraq and Al-Qaeda, after completing their primary missions, turned against the US.

Each of them was careful to accompany its opposition to the US with intense and unprecedented media activities. They were also well aware that international attention was an essential ingredient in gaining fame or notoriety. Nobody bothered about Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the alleged right-hand man of Bin Laden, when his violent activities were limited to Luxor or some other locations in Upper Egypt. Saddam did not draw international attention when he ordered murders in Kurdish areas. On the other hand, after his victory over Iran, the international media began to pay more attention to his statements. And he then realized the importance of publicity. He held conferences, particularly to attract the media. His next dramatic move was to invade Kuwait.

As the return strike did not come forth immediately, he might have been deceived by his own media image to believe that he was invincible, even to the US. He promised the Arab public that he would defeat the US if it dared to attack him. He reminded the Arabs of the US defeat in Vietnam only a few years earlier and now it was his turn to inflict a more devastating defeat on the US. It was this megalomania, nourished and blown out of proportion, by the media that brought about his humiliating fall.

The Afghan scenario does not differ much. In its origin, development and, most likely, in its downfall, Al-Qaeda closely resembles Iraq. Bin Laden and his group boast that they defeated and hastened the break up of the Soviet Union. Though this is a perversion of history, he now swears that his Al-Qaeda will destroy the US which will meet the same fate as the Soviet Union. Even Nikita Khrushchev did not make such claims during the heyday of Soviet power.

I have not known anything more dangerous than unbalanced media publicity for a man or organization. The media, which blew Bin Laden out of proportion and made him a great hero in the eyes of his followers, did the same to the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. He occupied an unreasonably high pedestal until the 1967 war. Then, in only six days, the image that it had taken him 15 years to build was destroyed.

The founder of Al-Qaeda is also a victim of megalomania blown out of all proportion by the media. He too is fast approaching the fall which comes inevitably to all megalomaniacs.