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Scott Simon's Essays
The bin Laden Tape
Dec. 15, 2001 -- When Americans hear about some of the doubts over the authenticity of the Osama bin Laden videotape overseas, they might want to ask: Did two of the tallest buildings in the world have to fall on people's heads for them to know what's happened?
But maybe their skepticism ought to be expected. Many of the doubters live where official state-run media have been saying that the attacks of September 11th were the work of the CIA or Israeli agents or Hollywood special-effects artists in the pay of the CIA. In fact, the refrain that seems to run from Cairo to Qatar goes, `The Americans have Hollywood. They can show us anything.'
Their mistrust may remind us that in many nations around the world, people do not turn to the news for news. Newscasts and newspapers are expected to be regularly scheduled injections of propaganda. People don't watch, read or listen to hear the news, but to take clues about what they're expected to do. And yet it's been my reporter's experience that in their hearts, minds and homes many of these same people have little illusions about what they hear from official sources.
In the old Soviet Union, the Argentina ruled by right-wing generals, the Ethiopia ruled by Marxist murderers, and present-day Cuba, I've known people who would rally against Western policy when their governments were looking, but at night, they would listen to the BBC and Voice of America to hear what had actually happened. We now know that just about the most precious possession among Afghans during the reign of the Taliban were battery-run radios. People would toe the line laid out by tyrants and listen to the news from London and Washington.
Now some people will point out that Americans can be naive about the truth of what we hear. Some officials will try to prevent news from getting out. News organizations can fill too much air or space with inanities and not enough with minority views.
There is a section in the videotape of Osama bin Laden in which he says of the September 11th hijackers, quote: "Those young men said, indeed, in New York and Washington, speeches that overshadow all other speeches made everywhere else in the world. I heard someone on Islamic radio who owns a school in America say, `We don't have time to keep up with the demands of those who are asking about Islamic books to learn about Islam.'"
What Osama bin Laden may not understand, among so much else, is that thousands of Americans are reading about Islam because they are curious and fair-minded. The past few months have reminded them that they share this country and this planet with millions of people who profess Islam, and they would like to know something more about it. Because they are free to learn anything, they do not have to fear what they learn.
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