You thought your dad was a tough guy

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This article was published 12/12/2009 (6120 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Growing Up bin Laden

Osama’s Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World

By Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden and Jean Sasson

St. Martin’s Press, 333 pages, $33

The sad thing is that it did not have to turn out this way.

According to this revealing memoir by the first of his four wives and his fourth son, arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden has more in common with his despised, privileged, affluent western counterparts than he does with many impoverished Muslims.

His father was a wealthy contractor in Saudi Arabia whose friendship with the king enabled him to be "one of the wealthiest men in a country brimming with wealthy men."

Co-written with American Jean Sasson, the book is an often moving portrayal of life inside the large bin Laden family, in which Osama made all the decisions.

In a frightening way, this could be anyone’s family story, given the same environmental, cultural and religious circumstances.

Najwa, who resides in Syria, where she was born in 1958, is still legally married to bin Laden and neither criticizes nor praises him; she provides the facts of their life together.

Omar, however, has no reservations about expressing his disgust and disappointment with his father’s activities and parenting skills.

Now 28 and claiming to be working for peace, Omar lives in Saudi Arabia, one of the many countries in which the bin Laden family lived.

Sasson, who has written extensively about the Middle East, provides a useful political and historical framework for the family stories.

Complete with family pictures, three appendices (one about the fates of the rest of the bin Laden family, one a chronology of Osama’s activities and one an Al-Qaida chronology) and an index, the book is the most comprehensive account thus far of the elusive Osama bin Laden’s personal life.

The bin Ladens lived a necessarily nomadic life, with Osama being on the run from one country or another at all times.

The most striking impression gleaned from all of the personal anecdotes is the contradictory, opportunistic, illogical and utterly destructive nature of war.

Loyalties shift, government policies change, religions create irreparable divisions, former allies become enemies; it is madness.

Najwa and Omar both mention that bin Laden subjected his family members, including infant children, to rigorous training in the desert hills of Saudi Arabia with no water or a moment’s respite until they descended the steep hills.

His rationale was to ensure that they be prepared for desert warfare with the "infidel" West, should it attack the Muslim world.

He disapproved of associating with Christians; he despised the West. However, he had no qualms about always driving the latest, fastest model of western-made sports car.

His favourite radio station was the BBC. He worshipped his mother, praising her strength of character and her determination; yet his four wives were not allowed out of the house without the company of a male relative, and his own daughters were forbidden to attend school.

When then-U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan helped to finance the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in their war against the Russian invaders, Osama readily accepted their western infidel support. The West had no apparent apprehension about granting it, either, at the time.

The West helped to make bin Laden and his "ragtag group of Mujahideen" heroes in the Muslim world, only to be hoist by their own petard.

Elizabeth Hopkins is a Winnipeg writer.