You know we’re in a new era when the president of the United States takes credit for an assassination and the press needs to explain who the villain was and why he was important.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, 71, had an established routine of sitting on a balcony in downtown Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. On Sunday morning, the bespectacled old man stepped out onto the balcony and was promptly incinerated by two Hellfire missiles.
Al-Zawahiri was the leader of Al-Qaeda, the jihadist terrorist organisation. He assumed the role 11 years ago, after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan by US special forces. Before that, he was bin Laden’s deputy, although Zawahiri was credited with being both his ideological mentor and strategic brain.
You, too, may have needed reminding of who this Egyptian doctor-turned-terrorist was. It’s been a long time since the headline news have mentioned Al-Qaeda.
And, yet, it was once universally feared. It was the author of the 9/11 attacks and sponsor of other major terror attacks in Europe and (more often) the Muslim world. Around a decade ago, Al-Qaeda was overtaken by IS in importance. Even IS has become insignificant now.
It doesn’t mean Al-Qaeda is no longer active and that the security services don’t have anything to worry about. But Al-Qaeda has long become what many experts predicted it would become as far back as 20 years ago. It’s not a major, octopus-like, terror organisation under the control of a criminal mastermind (say, like James Bond’s arch-enemy, Spectre). It’s more like a brand name lent to local terror groups so that their foul deeds can attract more attention (say, like the Trump name glittering in giant lettering on luxury real estate that otherwise has little connection to, or investment by, the 45th US president).
For many years, Zawahiri has been a ghost with few sightings. He remained a spectre in our lives because of the security operations at airports that were introduced in the wake of 9/11. The rules obliging us to remove belts and shoes remain in place, although, in comparison with the past, these regulations seem now to be applied with a light touch.
On the occasion of his death, it’s not just Zawahiri who needs to be remembered. What Europeans were told, at the time, about Al-Qaeda and Islam also needs to be recalled. We were told nonsense by two sides of a political divide. Nonsense that seemed uniquely and dramatically true at the time but which never came to pass.
On one side, we were told that Islam was to be identified with Zawahiri’s brand of jihadism. All Muslims were potential jihadists. They were supposedly angry, frustrated and resentful over how badly modernity treated their home countries and religion.
They were out to take over Europe by mass immigration and large families. They wanted to refashion Europe into “Eurabia”.
At the time, these were not just loopy ideas. There was systemic propaganda about the supposed incompatibility between “real Islam” and democracy.
There were also repeated “news stories” about “Muslim takeovers” in European towns and cities. How a British local council refused to fly the flag of St George because of Muslim objections. Or how Sharia law was declared in another town. Or how this or that part of Sweden or Germany had become a no-go area.
What Europeans were told, at the time, about Al-Qaeda and Islam also needs to be recalled. We were told nonsense by two sides of a political divide- Ranier Fsadni
These were zombie stories. Investigated, you’d find there was no truth to the matter or, at best, that an unrepresentative small minority had made claims about Islam that the majority of Muslims, living in the same town, explicitly rejected. Yet, no matter how often they were debunked, they returned to life again.
Many of the liberal opponents of the populists pushing these claims were no better, however. Their reaction to 9/11 was to say it was important to accept Turkey as an EU member state to show that Islam “was compatible with democracy”.
Show who? Muslims? They knew that already. When the Arab Spring came, democratic movements spread across North Africa and the Middle East.
In the name of stability, the US and Europe stood by several undemocratic regimes (usually petroleum-producing monarchies). Two successive US presidents gave Saudi Arabia a pass on the brutal assassination of a journalist. It made clear that if there is a question to be asked, it’s whether Western global self-interest is compatible with democracy for non-Westerners.
Meanwhile, Turkey, under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, turned ugly, for reasons to do with its state and international interests, not Islam.
No matter who’s in charge, Turkey is a regional power with military and economic interests, in its immediate neighbourhood, that aren’t easy to reconcile with European ones. All these arguments are ghosts now. But it’s worth remembering how vividly they once were made and with what conviction by leaders on all sides.
It should give you a healthy scepticism about the things you’re told today with as much vivid detail, conviction and “true anecdotes”.
The next time a populist tells you that global elites are out to experiment with your body and mind, or replace you with Africans, remember what you were once told about the Eurabia project.
The next time a liberal tells you that the enemy lies within and that it’s an uneducated, white working class driven by resentment, anger and loathing, brainwashed by a political cult, prone to violence and out to overthrow the democratic order, remember that the same thing was once said by (ironically) populists about Muslims.
The sooner we can kill off these ghosts as well, the better off we’ll all be.