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Geopolitics

The Second Death Of Osama Bin Laden

Editorial: This year's “Arab spring” was the death knell for Osama Bin Laden's ideology of international jihad. Still, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to restrictions on civil liberties in Europe and the United States, his legacy l

The Second Death Of Osama Bin Laden

The timing could not have been better. The man who embodied international jihad for so long died just as the "Arab spring" delivered a serious blow to this totalitarian fantasy.

Osama bin Laden's political demise began when Arab peoples rose in the name of democracy and not in the Islamist caliphate envisioned by Al Qaeda.

What U.S. President Barack Obama announced May 1, when he reported that American commandos in Pakistan had killed the Al Qaeda founder, was in many ways Bin Laden's second death.

Politically speaking, the first end for the Saudi dissident occurred when protestors in Tunis and Cairo started brandishing their revolutionary banners. They carried no message of anti-Western hatred, no threat towards "crusaders, Jews," or towards America – Bin Laden's usual targets. What Arab protestors around the world called for instead was freedom and democracy, values the jihadist leader deeply loathed.

In the Arab world, at least, bin Laden had already lost the battle – quite simply because the current uprising is not carried in the name of the Islamism so dear to the Al Qaeda leader. Bin Laden's vision called for the establishment of an Islamist caliphate that would somehow solve all the problems facing Muslim countries, maybe even the entire world.

Bin Laden died just as the ability of Islamic terrorist groups to mobilize and train their fighters was waning. This is not to say there will be no more terrorist attacks in the world. The death of Bin Laden will not put an end to the killings and kidnappings carried out by Al Qaeda's North African affiliates. The recent bombing in Morocco is an unfortunate case in point.

The cult of violence in its most ferocious form is not the only thing that Bin Laden leaves behind. It is not overstating the case to say he marked the beginning of the 21st century – both profoundly and tragically, shaping the world's strategic landscape.

Convinced that it should wage war in response to the 9/11 attacks, the United States is still stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan. These interventions have not only had huge military and economic costs, they have also durably tarnished America's image in the Arab and Muslim world. Even if Present Obama can benefit from Bin Laden's death at home, the Afghan mess is far from over for him.

Al Qaeda also proved that a small group of people could successfully organize large scale murder. Had Bin Laden been able to kill 3 million people in New York City instead of 3,000, by unleashing a chemical or biological weapon, he would most certainly have done so.

The possibility of such an attack has made the fight against terrorism a top priority for most countries. In both the United States and Europe, the obsession for security has led governments to restrict certain civil liberties. Osama bin Laden's horrific heritage lingers on.

Read the original article in French.

Photo - Jaques Delarue

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Society

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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