The big news this week is the death of Osama Bin Laden. What this means to society and the fight against terrorism in general remains to be seen. However, through a sociological approach we may be understand the death further. Osama Bin Laden was a symbol to many people throughout the world. rather as a martyr or as a murderer he is the symbol of Al Qaeda and even terrorism. will his death stop terror? The answer to that is obviously no. His death does eliminate a symbol of terror. As Goffman and Blumer, as well as others have discussed symbols are important to us. terrorists lost a symbol and we should not be as quick to dismiss that as some have.
Also whatever one thinks of Osama bin laden and there is a lot of bad stuff we can say about him he was a dynamic and influential leader of a terrorist organization. As Max Weber has described with charismatic authority when the organization loses a charismatic leader it becomes unstable. There will also possibly a struggle to replace Bin Laden as leader of Al Qaeda which will further hamper Al Qaeda's mission. The new leader may not have Bin Laden's ability to raise money and create a dynamic network of individuals capable of terrorism.
The death of Osama Bin Laden is a tremendous news event, but it is also a sociological event that needs to be analyzed further.
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