9-11 Redux

A True-life Story of Arab Anger and Punishment and a Theory About What Happened to Osama bin Laden and What’s About to Happen to Saddam Hussein.

by Lulu Dilworth

By the afternoon of September 11, I realized that an experience I had as a teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL) offered possible insight into the rage behind the attacks. I’ve thought about it many times it the months since said nothing because the violence of my experience was minuscule compared to the violence of 9-11.

After a year I’ve concluded that maybe there’s something here, a clue perhaps to what happened then and what has—and hasn’t—happened since 9-11.

Here’s the story:
ESL teachers daily face a daunting challenge. Though the job description seems simple (teach English to speakers of other languages), it’s not just a matter of doing grammar and vocabulary exercises. Especially in America every ESL teacher knows that it is impossible to separate the language from the culture, which means that tips about acculturation are as important as exercises in using the past subjunctive:

One small step toward acculturation that many ESL teachers make is to invite their students to an end-of-semester party in the teacher’s home. Such an event will often be the first—and maybe, for a long time, the only—time the foreign students will be inside an American residence.

It was during such a party that the incident occurred that I immediately thought of on 9-11.

My class that semester was large and by the time the students and their friends, spouses, and family members had all arrived for the party there were some 40 people present. One look around the living room and you thought you were at the United Nations. Four continents (Asia, Africa, Europe, South America) were represented, and a dozen countries and languages.

Things were going swimmingly. The dining table groaned under a feast of potluck contributions. Non-alcoholic refreshments were flowing freely. Conversation was brisk and in the yard a multinational soccer game was in progress.

Problem: Aware that dogs are neither common nor welcome in some cultures, we had shut our mixed-breed in a bedroom. At some point, a student searching for the bathroom opened the bedroom door. The dog of course, ecstatic to be free, came bounding into the living room.

A young women, the date of an Arab student, screamed as the dog came toward her. I was in the room and immediately grabbed the dog by the collar and took him back to the bedroom. My wife was also present. She began to console the young woman and assure her that the dog was gone and would not come back.

By the time I returned, I could see that the young woman, though upset, understood the situation and was calming down. Her date, the Arab student, was a different matter. His face, a livid red, showed an expression of pure rage. Another Arab student spoke to him but he was beyond words. A few tense minutes passed as other students tried to resume partying. My wife stayed with the young woman, who was clearly becoming relaxed.

Abruptly, her date took her by the arm, jerked her up and they left the party, accompanied by another of the Arab students.

I was disturbed and talked to the remaining Arabs, who assured me all was well.

The party continued to a normal conclusion. Afterward my wife and I discussed the incident and I said I would apologize to the student next day in class.

Next morning, leaving the house for work, we discovered that one of the windows in my wife’s car had been smashed. Not cracked, but violently hit so that the entire window had shattered.

I never saw the Arab student again. He was not in class that morning and never re-appeared. I asked his fellow students about him, and all they would say was that he unexpectedly had to "go back to his country." I checked with the school office. They knew nothing. The student had not officially withdrawn. He had apparently just left.

Though I never learned what actually happened, my feeling, when I talked to the other Arab students, was that they were deeply embarrassed by the display of uncontrolled anger. I didn’t mention the broken window but it was clear that they knew what had happened and that somehow they had "arranged" for the offending student simply to disappear.

Flash forward now to 9-11, and after. We quickly learned that most of the hijackers were Saudi Arabian. In the months that followed we slowly learned that Osama himself was strangely elusive. Story after story was spun from Washington and Kabul about the hunt and how it was hindered by terrain and weather, by language problems, by cultural differences.

The Osama videos ceased. And news of the hunt dwindled to a trickle.

Here’s a theory for you, based on the small, unpleasant incident described above. Considering the lack of hard evidence, you can make of it what you will.

Theory:
In the tribal culture of the Middle East, Osama, as long as he was meddling only in Israeli-Palestinian affairs or even taking over an entire barren country, was let go his own way by his very rich fellow clan members. To some he no doubt seemed a black sheep, to others he was clearly he hero.

With the events of 9-11 all that changed. He had attacked— successfully!—the source of all wealth and stability in the world. Whatever problems the Saudis have with America, and there are many, they know that without America their part of the world will descend into utter chaos. And here was one of their own using his own wealth to attack the maintainer of order.

My guess is that after 9-11, the Saudi ruling class set out to "rectify" the gross mis-step of Osama bin Laden quietly and completely, just as the students in my class had quietly and completely "rectified" their fellow’s outburst of violent rage. How? Simple. You cause him to disappear. No apologies, no explanations. One day he’s there, the next he’s not. End of story.

I suspect that Osama has been similarly "taken care of" but probably to more dire effect. Most likely, using cultural resources that no Western spy agency or military force has access to, my guess is that the Saudis had him tracked down, and "removed."

The discontent that produced him, and 9-11, still simmers. And no doubt we will see other evidence of the uncontrollable rage that produces broken windows or collapsed skyscrapers.

But most likely the Saudis have cleaned their own house and have very quietly made it absolutely clear that no such future breaches of "etiquette" will be tolerated.

Such a possibility raises interesting questions. If this is what has happened, do the Bush forces know this? Do they surmise it? Is Osama bin Laden now just a convenient (even though non-existent) stalking horse for the "war on terrorism"? Is the Bush determination to invade Iraq part of some informal understanding with the Saudi’s: You get rid of Osama and we’ll get rid of Saddam (of course publicly the Saudis would have to maintain a pose of shocked aggrievement at the thought of Americans invading their neighbor).