Evil has an uncanny habit of blending with fantasy and being garnished with bravado. Adolf Hitler was unquestionably the most evil product of the previous century. His fantastic belief in the Master Race—which was complemented by the hateful anti-Semitism—was clouded in the boast of a Thousand-Year Reich. "Enjoy the war," his propaganda chief Josef Goebbels implored fellow Germans, "peace will be terrible."

Osama bin Laden is this century's first inheritor of the mantle of evil. He aroused the subliminal passions of his chosen flock with the dream of an Islamic Utopia-a state of being that would replicate the medievalism of 7th century Arabia. His instrument of salvation was jehad, a doctrine of murder as obnoxious as the Nazi "final solution". He combined dogmatic certitude with total ruthlessness, without even a touch of remorse. His crime was more than masterminding the hijacking of four commercial aircraft and killing some 4,000 people on September 11. He neatly hijacked a war-ravaged country and made it the nerve centre of terror. He nearly hijacked an entire faith and almost triggered a clash of civilisations.

Bin Laden was thwarted by the power of technology and the resolve of decency. But even in defeat, he changed the parameters of the world and the way we live and think.

1 Fear
EVERYWHERE, EVERYDAY

UNDER SIEGE: Though public buildings like the Indian Parliament have turned fortresses overnight, the fear of assault persists

Once upon a time, the power of the suicide bomber was confined to conflict-ridden parts of the world-Israel, Lebanon, Sri Lanka and perhaps Jammu and Kashmir in India. No longer. On September 11, bin Laden injected a new dimension into our lives-fear. Suddenly, nothing seemed safe. The dreary security drill people had to endure at airports and other public places no longer seemed an unnecessary irritant. It became an indispensable part of our own safety.

Even these precautions seemed somehow inadequate. A vigilant police force blessed with sniffer dogs could, conceivably, unearth planted explosives awaiting detonation by remote control. But which drill could deter fanatical terrorists willing to become human bombs or taking over aircraft using everyday essentials like scissors and cigarette lighters? Security manuals inform us there is no foolproof deterrent against terrorists who don't fear for their own lives. And bin Laden's disciples were desperados, willing to kill anywhere, dying in the process and thereby achieving heavenly salvation with angels and virgins dancing attendance.

For the civilised world, this self-destructive monstrosity bred an unreal climate of fear born of utter helplessness. As policing became more rigid and intrusive-racial profiling of airline passengers and vetting of tenants, students and employees-civil libertarians raised an outcry. In a normal world their protests would have been justified. But the devotees of bin Laden had learnt to prey on the easygoing, casual ways of the modern world. They may have mastered the techniques of terror in bleak and forbidding lands where time has stood still, but they practised their skills in crowded, cosmopolitan metros where anonymity was a fact of life.

The immediate casualty was travel. The fear of hijackers willing to crash passenger aircraft into visible targets kept people at home and brought about the collapse of many airline companies. High-rise buildings-icons of modern capitalism-suddenly seemed very vulnerable. Reports of plutonium unearthed at Al Qaida hideouts in Afghanistan made the prospect of primitive nukes operated by stateless terrorists very real and frightening.

In his macabre fashion, bin Laden did more than arouse the fear of invisible terror. He compromised the element of trust on which modern societies function. The rogue Saudi billionaire made us distrust our colleagues, our neighbours, our fellow passengers. In fact, every stranger.

He destroyed all that was left of our innocence.

2 Terrorism
IT IS EVERYONE'S WAR

LOST CAUSE: Bin Laden's overkill has taken the punch out of terrorist causes the world over, be it Palestine or Kashmir

Modern terrorism, it is said, originated in the bleak ghettos of Beirut and Belfast. Since then, the phenomenon has come a long way. From Tamil Tigers equipped with cyanide capsules to a Bible-flaunting Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City, terror has become the short-cut to fame for anyone with a cause and a grievance. It has been greeted with instant indignation but has also served its purpose. It has earned publicity for the perpetrators, created martyrs for the cause and generated emotive mythologies.

In a world polarised along rival power blocs and superpowers, the definition of terrorism posed enormous problems. One man's terrorist was another man's freedom fighter. Gandhians being in short supply in the world, the end was always seen to be justifying the means. Thus, the IRA that pulled off a spectacular bombing in Brighton in 1984, nearly killing a British prime minister, drew its cadres from Londonderry and its sponsors from New York. The LTTE picked up its cannon fodder from Jaffna but its support network extended to Tamil expatriates in Europe and North America.

Did a televised September 11 make a difference? It did, most definitely. As America struggled to regain its composure, the sheer immorality of bin Laden's actions struck home. Maybe it would have been different if 4,000 people had perished in an explosion in a crowded Delhi bazaar. There has never been enough justice to go round the world. But this was New York, the citadel of world capitalism and showcase of the world's greatest power. The outrage here changed the rules of the game.

"Every nation in every region now has a decision to make," US President George W. Bush told the Congress on September 23, "either you are with us or with the terrorists." It was a forthrightness that struck a chord in all the countries that had suffered the depredation of terrorists masquerading as freedom fighters. Unwittingly, bin Laden made victimhood the basis of the global coalition against him.

"We have to drain the swamp they live in," said the blunt US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. This new found zero tolerance made all terrorism unacceptable, whether Palestinian or Pakistani. The civilised world could no longer look upon the hooded gunmen with starry-eyed indulgence. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani gauged the pulse and turned down a donation by a Saudi prince because it was prefaced by gratuitous advice on the need for a "balanced" US policy on Palestine. Anti-terrorism had to be unconditional.

Bin Laden took the cause out of terrorism.