Heroes, Terrorists and Osama

Everybody in the world has a right to say whatever they want or to comment how they want. That is not our responsibility.

What do you personally think of Osama bin Laden?

Osama is a Muslim and there is a war between Osama and America, and each side can accuse or give bad names to its rival. So if we were mediating between him and his enemies we might comment, but we have no way to comment what is Osama and whether he is a terrorist or not.

You don't see him as a terrorist then?

His followers may see him as a hero, but his enemies may call him a terrorist. And it is something existing in the world, to name your enemy as a terrorist, as the British colonialists called the Somali hero Mohammed Abdullah Hassan the Mad Mullah, while we know him as a hero. It is not compulsory to think as the Americans want us to think, as they think. We have different minds. For instance, the [apartheid regime] South Africans said that [Nelson] Mandela was a terrorist, and his people know him as a hero.

Everyone would agree Mandela is a hero, but he never flew airliners into buildings.