Dr. Mohammed T. Al-Rasheed

So, now that Libya has confessed and asked for forgiveness, is everything forgiven?

There are many diverse opinions on that issue, and since no jury verdict is required, we might assume what we like.

Let us play a little game of assumption. Let us assume that the ring of gold to the tune of $2.7 billion could make anyone forget anything.

Let us also assume that time will actually help heal all wounds. Let us also consider the fact that some historians today are re-classifying Nero from a mad criminal to a “misguided artist.” Let us take heart from the OJ debacle and assume that with the right team, one is guaranteed to jump over juries as well as airport obstacles.

If you have agreed to all these premises, philosophical argumentation binds you to accept the conclusion. The conclusion is that if you are rich, you are safe to do what you like.

To each rule, there is an exception. Saddam was such an unlucky exception. The circumstances demanded a dragon’s head and he was the most visible and least cared for. Off with his head!

Given the shifting sands of politics, might we not see a repentant Bin Laden signing a declaration of culpability and paying in hard cash for his atrocity? Might he not, as someone suggested, come humbly to beg forgiveness? If he does, and America accepts, we are really in deep trouble.

There is a story told in Arabia that might serve to make the point without having to go into graphic detail. Once upon a time, a wood gatherer and his son went out to fetch wood every day. One day a snake came out of a bush and bit the son. The son died. In his rage, the father started digging under the bush to get to the snake.

When he was about to get the snake, it came out and said: “Listen to me. Killing me will not get your son back. But I will leave you a gold coin every day at the entrance to my hole. You will have it as long as you live.”

The man agreed, and for months he would come and collect his gold coin. Then one day he thought that the snake was sitting on a pot of gold and he should have it all.

He remembered his son and began to cry over the loss he suffered. He chased the snake and managed to cut off its tail. The snake meanwhile built a bigger hole and the man could not get at it.

He sat at the mouth of the hole and cried, begging the snake to forgive and forget. The snake shouted from the depths of its hole: “You will never forget your son and I will never forget my tail. So let us leave it at that, and soon enough one of us will kill the other.”

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- Arab News Opinion 21 August 2003