22 - 28 November 2001
Issue No.561
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 22 - 28 November 2001 Issue No.561 |
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No man's an island
Osama Bin Laden's maternal family in Syria speaks to Ranwa Yehia of memories of the most wanted man in the world
It is hard to make a connection between this secular middle-class family in the coastal city of Latakia in Syria with Osama Bin Laden. But the Ghanem family is not only Bin Laden's maternal family, they are also his in-laws.
Apart from a framed picture of Mecca in the living room, there is no indication of a dominant presence of religion in the family. The three women present were not veiled and spoke as openly as the men. Six members of the Ghanem family agreed to speak to Al-Ahram Weekly about their now infamous cousin and brother-in-law, but they were nervous and would not permit themselves to be photographed. One of their main fears was upsetting the Saudi side of the family, although it was apparent from their apartment and lifestyle that they received no income from their rich relatives.
"I knew him since he was one. He used to come with his mother every summer until he was 17. He stopped coming when he became busy with work," said Suleiman Ghanem, one of Bin Laden's cousins.
Bin Laden's mother, Alia, married Mohamed Bin Oud Bin Laden in the late 1950s, in Latakia. Together, they had one child: Osama. Alia moved to Saudi Arabia with her husband shortly after her marriage, but she never missed a summer when she would come to see her family.
"They stayed in the family house when they came, Alia and Osama were on one floor and we were on another," said Naji Ghanem, another cousin. Naji's sister Najwa, is Bin Laden's first wife, and also his cousin. The two were married in 1974 when Bin Laden was 18.
Laila, Najwa's younger sister, was five when her sister joined Bin Laden in Saudi Arabia. "She [Najwa] didn't like my lifestyle; I'm not veiled and she doesn't like that. She always tried to convince me to wear the veil," said Laila. Although Najwa was not veiled when she grew up in Latakia, she immediately put on the traditional Saudi veil when she moved to Saudi Arabia.
Najwa, who has 11 children with Osama, used to come every summer with the youngest children to Latakia. Her visits became less frequent when she moved with her husband to Afghanistan in 1996. The last time her family saw her was two years ago. Since then, news of Najwa has became scarce, and the Ghanem family watches the news all the time, fearing the worst. They are extremely concerned about their daughter and cousin, but they do try to live with her decision.
"She has a conviction towards a certain lifestyle, and she is happy," said Laila.
When Osama was 13, his father died in a helicopter crash. He reportedly inherited $80 million, but it is well known that he does not live a luxurious lifestyle. "Being the wife of Bin Laden, she should have a lot of money, but she never complained about it. She became like him," said Naji.
In their younger days, Bin Laden would come for a month to Latakia every summer. The cousins spent time going to the beach, camping, riding horses, hunting and hiking through the orange orchards in the nearby village of Jabaryoun, where the Ghanem family is from.
Although Naji is the same age as Osama, he didn't speak much of his memories of him. "We were like any normal family, going to the beach, camping," Naji said.
Suleiman, 53, was older. A philosophy teacher in Latakia, Suleiman used to give Osama religious lessons. "He was a very quiet boy, not like children his age. He always said he wanted to grow up quickly to run his father's business. He was really impatient to go to work," Suleiman said.
"He loved nature so much. Latakia was extremely different from Saudi Arabia, green all over compared to the desert and heat of Saudi Arabia," Suleiman added. In fact, Bin Laden loved nature so much that he one day asked if he could buy a small island in the middle of a lake in Latakia and live on it, Suleiman said.
Since Bin Laden moved to Afghanistan, he has never once called his mother, who still lives in Saudi Arabia. The cousins speak of Alia's reaction to her son's growing Islamist militancy matter-of-factly. "At the beginning of his path, being a mother, she was very concerned. But when she saw it was his conviction, something he would not budge from, she said 'God bless him, God protect him'," said Laila.
"The man has chosen a path and this is his faith. In my assessment, I believe that his mother's conviction is that if he dies today he'll go to heaven," Suleiman said.
Najah, Naji's wife and cousin, cut in, saying that Alia actually started out by trying to stop her son, saying she wanted Bin Laden to come back to Saudi Arabia. Before she could continue, Suleiman cut her off, saying: "Careful, you're making your cousin look bad."
Suleiman, who kept describing Bin Laden as a modest and intelligent man, doesn't think of him as a terrorist. He believes there is not enough evidence to charge Bin Laden with the 11 September attacks and that the accusations were meant to "destroy the image of Arabs and Muslims."
Asked how he could explain Bin Laden's public blessing of the 11 September attacks, Suleiman said: "When a human being is hurt by someone else and that someone else gets hurt, your natural reaction is to say 'you deserve it.' This does not mean this is his [Bin Laden's] personal position. It's not like he loves crime."
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