Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [131]
For example, I remember once when Zawahari, my father, and Abu Hafs were sitting and drinking tea. The three men were all leaders, although my father was the head, and they knew it. Even Zawahari would ask him for permission to speak. I never once heard him say a single word without that permission. He would say, “Sheik Osama, may I please speak?” Or, “Sheik Osama, please, may I say something to the men?” All the other men were the same; no matter their status in their organizations, none dared utter a single thought without my father’s permission.
But that day they had my father’s permission to talk and were involved in a complex conversation about their goal of saving the world from American power. My father was saying, “All the weight and injustice has been put on the Islamic world. Do you put all the weight on one end of a seesaw? No, if you do, the seesaw cannot rise normally, in the way it was intended. Everything must be evenly distributed in life. Because Muslims are blamed for everything, we receive all the injustice in the world. It is wrong.”
I was expected to be a silent server, but on that day I had heard quite enough. Before I knew what was happening, my foolish tongue moved and I blurted out my thoughts. “My father, why have you brought us to this place? Why do you make us live like this? Why can’t we live in the real world and have a normal life, with ordinary things, surrounded by normal people? Why can’t we live in peace?” I had never spoken out so boldly before, yet I was so desperate to hear my father’s response that I looked brazenly into his eyes for the first time in my life.
My father was too shocked at my audacity to respond. He sat there without looking at or speaking to me. Remembering my tone and attitude, I’m surprised he didn’t cane me in front of the men.
Finally Abu Hafs relieved my father, saying, “Omar, we want to be here in this country. We have come out of our own desires so that we might escape the real life. We no longer want to be a part of that world. That is why your father is here. As his son, you belong with your father.”
I longed to protest further, but I didn’t. I well remember the hateful way that Zawahari glared at me, probably wishing he could put a bullet in my head, just as he had done to my innocent friend in Sudan.
By this time and age, I was losing my polite personality. My father wanted his sons to be aloof from all men, to follow his direction, a man whom few people really knew. He said, “My sons must be the fingers of my right hand. My thoughts must control your actions in the same manner my brain controls the movement of my limbs. My sons, your limbs should react to my thinking as though my brain was in your head.”
We were to be robots, in other words, without opinions or actions of our own.
Over time he would send us out with his orders, commanding us to be strong and forceful, and to avoid becoming too friendly with any of the men. Thus my brothers and I were afforded some of the princely status of our father. The men even starting calling the older sons of my father “the big sheiks,” which I admit was not unpleasant to my ears, for I had never had any recognition. My desire to establish my own presence increased with age. Over time my brothers and I became arrogant, feeling that we were above all the others, because that is the way we were regarded.
Our father abused us as his robot slaves and his men indulged us as young kings. As a result of our distorted lives, each