经济学人下载:扼杀了他的梦想

Even if it does, that should not obscure the fact that Mr bin Laden’s infamy in the West is losing its power to inspire his own people. This partly reflects the failure of violence to accomplish the goals he set himself in the Muslim world. Despite years of bloody strife, the Western way of life has continued to encroach on Muslims. Jihad has failed to banish non-Muslim troops from Islamic countries. Western forces remain in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kashmir is home to the Indian army, and Chechnya to the Russians. Israel still flourishes. Not one treacherous Arab government has yielded to the caliphate.

即使袭击成功，也不能遮掩本拉登在西方恶行，这对鼓舞他的民众逐渐无力。这一定程度上反映了他在穆斯林的目标的流产。即使经历多年的流血斗争，西方的生活方式还是继续侵入穆斯林世界。圣战组织不能把非穆斯林军队驱逐出伊斯兰国家。西方力量还在伊朗和阿富汗。印度的军队还驻扎在克什米尔，俄罗斯也还占领车臣。以色列还在发展。没有任何一个危险阿拉伯政府屈从于伊斯兰王权。

More than that, Mr bin Laden’s desire to murder his way to salvation has at last aroused widespread disgust among Muslims. After al-Qaeda slaughtered Shia and Sunni Muslims in their thousands in Iraq, even fellow jihadis began to condemn his doctrine of takfir, under which radicals took it upon themselves to declare other Muslim apostates and kill them. According to a poll by the Pew Research Centre, confidence in Mr bin Laden in the Palestinian territories has fallen from 72% in 2003 to 34% now. In Jordan it is down from 56% to 13%.

而且，至少本拉登企图救助穆斯林的方式在该地区激起普遍的反感。基地组织杀戮了伊朗的什叶派和逊尼派数千人之后，圣战追随者开始谴责他异教的说法。在他的异教说引导下，激进者惟命是从，把其它穆斯林当成叛徒并将其杀害。皮尔研究中心的民意调查显示，巴勒斯坦地区人们对本拉登的信心指数从2003年的72%降到现在的34%，约旦地区这一指数从56%降到了13%。

That still leaves a huge reservoir for recruits, but they have been hard to spot in the uprisings sweeping the Arab world. So far the Arab spring has cast violent jihad to the margins. When young Egyptians crowded into Cairo’s Tahrir Square, they wanted rights, not a caliph. Even the Muslim Brothers look as if they will opt for civil society rather than theocracy.

这仍有燎原的空间，但是在阿拉伯世界的起义中很难做到。目前阿拉伯起义把暴力的圣战者逼到了悬崖边上。新生的埃及人涌向开罗的解放广场，他们需要的是权利，而不是一个哈里发这样的统治者。甚至是穆斯林兄弟看起来好像更适合文明的社会，而非神权统治。

Political change in the Arab world will be neither smooth nor immediate. In some places it is sure to go wrong; in others it may yield to hard-line Islam. And yet, thanks to the Arab spring, Islam stands its best chance in generations of re-engaging with politics to found institutions in which religious and civil life can coexist. That would be a devastating refutation of Mr bin Laden’s ideology of universal Muslim struggle.

阿拉伯世界的政变坎坷缓慢。在一些地方人们的确是走错了路。另一些地方则可能屈从于强硬的伊斯兰。然而，多亏了阿拉伯起义，伊斯兰有绝好的机会让新一代的人们建立政治机构，让文明与宗教并存。这对本拉登追求统一的穆斯林这个理想本身又是一个彻底的反击。