Could the most dangerous weapon in the world be charisma?
From the Los Angeles Times:
Next week the academic journal Language & Communication will publish the poetry of Osama bin Laden, as part of an article by UC Davis Professor Flagg Miller. “Bin Laden is a skilled poet with clever rhymes and meters,” Miller told the Times of London, “which was one reason why many people taped him and passed recordings around, like pop songs.”
Osama bin Laden’s poems were among more than 1,500 audiocassettes found in al-Quaeda’s Afghanistan headquarters in 2001.
But is it any good?
Here’s a sample of his writing, also from the L.A. Times, so you can decide for yourself. (If you’ve been brushing up on your Arabic, you can hear the audio recording via the Times of London. I wonder who gets the royalties?)
Tomorrow, William, you will discover which young man [will] confront your brethren, who have been deceived by [their own] leaders.
A youth, who plunged into the smoke of war, smiling
He hunches forth, staining the blades of lances red
May God not let my eye stray from the most eminent
Humans, should they fall, Djinn, should they ride
[And] lions of the jungle, whose only fangs
[Are their] lances and short Indian swords
As the stallion bears my witness that I hold them back
[My] stabbing is like the cinders of fire that explode into flame
On the day of the stallions’ expulsion, how the war-cries attest to me
As do stabbing, striking, pens, and books.
As I read those words, it strikes me how easily that same poem could inspire a young soldier in any army, fighting for any cause, anywhere. What fiery uninformed 18-year-old, pointed toward an arbitrary enemy and ordered to hate and kill, wouldn’t feel his blood boil in his chest after hearing or reading something like that? If you didn’t know who wrote it, you might swear it was beautiful.
In that spirit, and on only the slightest of tangents, here’s the original version of the exquisitely scathing “With God on Our Side,” sung by a young Bob Dylan.
1 response so far ↓
1 Fattsimous // Sep 26, 2008 at 12:05 am
Sounds like any other ’shehh’ priest to whom I’ve attend a sermon.
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