You would have to be living in a cave in Tora Bora or North Waziristan to avoid the news of the killing of Osama bin Laden that dominated virtually all media this week. Reactions ranged from juvenile triumphalism through conspiracy theories to the scoring of cheap political points, writes Ingrid Srinath, Secretary General of CIVICUS: World Alliance of Citizen Participation.
Attempting to digest the barrage of commentary, I was reminded of Philip Bobbitt's book, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the 21st century. The book's tilt towards American exceptionalism did not, for me, invalidate its core thesis that "Like new antibiotic-resistant strains of tuberculosis, market state terrorism is a function of what we have done to eradicate old threats. That is, its principal causes are the liberalisation of the global economy, the internationalisation of the electronic media, and the military-technological revolution, all ardently sought innovations that won the Long War of the 20th century." "Within this setting," Bobbitt writes, "the battle ahead is not between Islam and the West, or the might of a hyperpower and the cunning of bearded men in mountain hideaways, but between terror and consent."
