Osama bin Laden has risen to the "hero" status of a Che Guevara in the Arab world, according to the staunchly anti-terrorist Egyptian writer Gamal Ghitani.
"It's the image of a man who abandons his wealth and heads for the mountains to fight," he said, adding that numerous young Arabs had begun making comparisons between the two men.
Ernesto Che Guevara, an Argentine-born doctor, became a hero of the Cuban revolution and resistance against American imperialism, although he never created devastation on the scale of the attacks attributed to bin Laden.
"He too gave up a comfortable situation to take up arms," Ghitani said in an interview, explaining the aura surrounding the wealthy Saudi-born bin Laden who is now in hiding somewhere in Afghanistan.
On October 7th, the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera broadcast a video of bin Laden and his lieutentants in their Afghan hideouts hailing the September 11th hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington and calling on Muslims to attack US interests.
Against a rocky background, in a camouflage jacket and with microphone in hand and an assault rifle by his side, bin Laden addressed the world in Arabic in a speech that was simultaneously translated into English on CNN.
As if echoing Ghitani's opinion, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera broadcast a documentary on Wednesday on Che Guevara who is widely revered in the Arab world as a model for the Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation.
Ghitani, whose novels have been translated into more than 20 languages, warned that bin Laden has become a "hero" among young middle class Arabs with little or no future.
"There's no future for young people in the Arab world," he said.
"I'm totally against terrorism and I think bin Laden represents a great danger for the future. He considers Christians non-believers which is against Islam, against the Koran.
"But he's very popular and as the tension rises, many young people will follow him. If the United States kills bin Laden, many young people will become bin Ladens in his place," he said.
The day after bin Laden's televised speech, many Egyptians from a wide range of backgrounds voiced an often-admiring interest in his remarks. "You get the impression that he's a real man, a real militant."
"He's right that the Americans should not feel secure as long as the Palestinians cannot," said Naglaa Bedeir, a journalist with Sabah al-Khair magazine.
"For 12 months, we've only gone as far as expressing our sympathy for the Palestinians verbally. Bin Laden is the only one who has done something for them," she added.
The opposition newspaper Al-Wafd yesterday reflected the vision of a man who has abandoned the high life to take up the resistance "Bin Laden had youth and millions of dollars. He could have owned palaces in the most beautiful places on earth, private jets, luxury yachts and the most beautiful girls. But he gave it all up to go to Afghanistan," the paper's commentator, Ahmed Abul Futuh, wrote.
Earlier this month, Ghassan Tueni, founder of the mass-circulation liberal Lebanese daily An-Nahar, wrote: "The worst thing that could happen to the world, and particularly the third world, would be Bin Laden, whatever his fate, becoming a symbol like other enemies of the United States like (Cuban revolutionaries) Fidel Castro, Che Guevara."