Fear is a foolish counselor, and it is also an addictive one. As the work of Rene Girard and others makes clear, our national anxieties love to vent themselves on some monster, real or imaginary. We can unite our party, if not our nation, around common aggression against shared fear – even if we can’t unite them around a common vision around shared values.

It’s a very good point. One – rather extreme – etymology of the word community is ‘co-munis’ – people we build walls and fight with. We gather together in common resistance to some greater evil, and when this is vanquished – witchcraft, communism, Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism – we move on to the next thing.

We need something to fear, because without this external fear, we would have no choice but to face the real monster: the monster within.

Christopher Booker’s work on why we tell stories outlines this progression well. The Three Billy-Goats Gruff is a children’s story about facing an external orge… but as we move into more serious stories, the orge turns out to be the ‘self’ that we need to face.

This is one of the key questions I’ve tried to address in ‘Other’ – a book I’m pleased the Brian is a big fan of. We need to address the other within the self before we can properly address the problems of engaging the ‘other others’ who exist externally.

That ‘the West’ and ‘Islamic extremism’ have risen in opposition to one another suggests that they are both experiencing some kind of existential crisis. The west is really not convinced by the spiritual vacuousness of consumer capitalism, and Islamic extremists are not convinced that the Arab / Middle East construct is anything like what Mohammed envisaged. Both need to look within themselves, and somehow try to resolve their problems without conflict with each other.

Baying crowds, a bloody execution by an occupying power, the speedy disposal of a body, conspiracy theories already abounding… All sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it?

As a ‘Christian’ nation, the US will understand more than anyone that killing your nemesis is only the beginning of another version of their lives – and that new version can be much much more difficult to manage than the physical one that you have been so desperate to eliminate.

Jesus’ death at the hands of the Roman occupiers in the Jewish capital was, in many ways, a PR disaster. Having thought that they had done everything they could to get rid of someone who threatened the status quo and was disturbing the peace – killed him in public after numerous trials and hearings and disposed of his body securely in a guarded stone tomb – they still could not prevent his followers coming up with a theory that he had escaped death and was still very much alive and leading their radical movement. More violence followed. Locally, Jewish leaders cast out followers from their religious meetings. At a wider level, crackdowns were ordered, and fanatics like Paul were sent to root out and bring to justice any further cells. The big powers of the time also used their might: locking up the most vocal believers, and then dragging them from their jails and using them for sport.

Still sound familiar?

Bin Laden’s death is probably a good thing. But it now presents the world with a whole host of new problems. When you bite the head off a chicken, you end up with a headless chicken. The Christian narrative of Easter and beyond can become so over-familiar that we forget how well it parallels with founding stories of other movements, and we would do well to consider how best to manage the reactions that some radical Muslims will have.

There will be conspiracy theories, and arguments about the body. But there will also be those who will take the end of Bin Laden’s physical life and be emboldened by internalising his spirit. How should we deal with them? Clearly, more violence and persecution is only going to strengthen their resolve. What we must show them is compassion – and hope that the grassroots movements in the Arab world in particular will show that the desire for democracy and freedom of expression is stronger than any ideology that seeks to overthrow and bind. And what we must also resist is celebration of the killing.  That, one can be sure, will only end badly.

Really, this video is quite amazing. A Fox News discussion, in which the interviewee claims that:

“The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama Bin Laden to detonate a major weapon in the United States.“

and that,

“Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as is necessary.”

Perhaps the clearest statement yet of the need that every extreme movement has for its shadow.

Neo-Conservatism is nothing without Bin Laden. And he is nothing without them. They are both desperate to return to power. One wonders who will fire the first shot, under the auspices of fighting the other, but in reality in desperation to get back into power.

It’s ‘the only way to save the village was to destroy it’ all over again.