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s I watched US President Barack Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden with his body buried at sea after Saudi Arabia refused to accept it, I posted my reactions through my Twitter account.

“An ideology is hard to kill with the death of its advocates like Bin Laden, but his death can help reduce his global leadership.”

I tweeted further: “Osama and many terrorists have used Islam to sustain their ideologies and actions, but they don’t represent around 1 billion Muslims in the world.”

However, the death has meant different things to different people around the globe. Many in the US and elsewhere have welcomed and celebrated Bin Laden’s demise as a victory over the leader of number-one terrorist network al-Qaeda.

Obama thinks “we can all agree this is a good day for America”. Obama and Hillary Clinton pointed out that “justice has been served” for the victims of 9/11 in particular, and Americans in general. Many say “the world is now safer”.

American Muslim leaders, including that of CAIR (Council of American-Islamic Relations) welcome the death, because “Osama was a mass murderer”.

Muslim Senator Keith Ellison said Bin Laden was responsible for mass killings in the US, Pakistan, Iraq, Kenya, Tanzania and more, and had caused fear and suffering for many.

Some in the US have expressed their ambivalence toward the death: The killing of a man without trial is clearly not correct for them. Some would expect Bin Laden to have been captured alive.

Some, including self-proclaimed Christians, said “they do not rejoice the death of a human being, no matter how monstrous he was”.

“Judgment and punishment are up to God,” Christian author James Martin wrote. Although he prays that Bin Laden’s departure may lead to peace, as a Christian, he is asked to pray for Bin Laden and at some point forgive him, a command that comes from Jesus.

In Indonesia, when people are preoccupied with domestic problems, including how to deal with the spread of the Negara Islam Indonesia (NII, the Indonesian Islamic State) ideology, including in schools and colleges, mixed responses have been voiced in the media: Many have welcomed the death, whereas others, including the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) moderate leader Said Aqil Siradj implicitly welcomed it but added that the Allied Forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Libya could also be regarded as terrorists, radicals and uncivilized.

The US, he implied, should not demonstrate double standards, but serve justice in dealing with terrorism.

Some Islamist leaders have said Bin Laden’s death will not eliminate al-Qaeda. Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) president Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq said the death would have no direct impact in Indonesia because none
of Bin Laden’s family has investments here.

He added that violence came from injustice and poverty, so violence would not stop if justice and prosperity were absent.

Another PKS leader commented that al-Qaeda was based on an ideology and had a developed organization and recruitment system and therefore terrorism remained a threat.

Some liberal progressive activists commented that it would be better if Bin Laden were captured alive so he could stand trial and people could hear what he had to say.

Progressive activists commented only a little. One simply observed that when a friend is killed the loss is mourned, but when an enemy is killed, it is rejoiced.

They seem to agree with an analyst that the loss of a symbolic, semi-charismatic leader whose own survival burnished his legend was significant, but that radicalism and violence were not about to end.

Many questions have been raised, including about the future of terrorist ideology: Will terrorism decline? Will the death of Osama bin Laden bring a new world order? How should the world leaders address the root causes of terrorism and reduce its spread in many parts of the world, including Indonesia?

The fatwas or edicts reportedly from Bin Laden have been read and translated into many languages. The edicts issued in 1996, 1998, 2004 and later years contained a global call to war waged against the US and mention some of the reasons for Bin Laden’s ideology of terror: Because of the US presence in the holy sites Mecca and Medina, the unqualified US support of Israel and of the US attacks on Iraq and other “Muslim soil”.

Bin Laden urges the Muslim world to kill American crusaders and Jews, combatants and civilians as well as whoever is in support of them.

For those who show support or sympathy, Bin Laden constitutes a symbol of resistance against the US power. Some observers like Middle Eastern historian Bernard Lewis have argued that Bin Laden was a model for anti-globalization, anti-Westernization and anti-modernism.

Other scholars comment that terrorists as fundamentalists have lived as by-product of modernity.

But the appeal of Bin Laden cannot be overstated because many fatwas were issued to reject such calls. Most Muslims have rejected terrorism, the killing of civilians and the use of violence.

The struggle and discursive debate among Muslim leaders and groups have intensified between those who agree with the ideas but not the violent tactics; those who reject violence and terrorism without qualification; those who sympathize with terrorists and those who commit similar acts of terror in London, Bombay, Manila, Bali, Jakarta and other places.

A survey conducted by Pew Research Center on Muslim publics around the world a few months prior to Bin Laden’s death indicates little support for the al-Qaeda leader. In the Palestinian territories, which he used as rationale for his war, only 34 percent expressed confidence in him to do the right thing in world affairs.

In 2011, about 26 percent of Indonesians supported Bin Laden, compared to 22 percent of Egyptians and 13 percent of Jordanians. These numbers dropped from the figures in 2003 and 2005. This explains why there have been fewer reactions to Bin Laden’s death in the Muslim world than in the US.

Now that Bin Laden has been officially confirmed dead, some people have remained concerned about the perpetration of his ideology.

Others have raised more ethical, philosophical questions about just war, patriotism based on killing, the value of human beings, violence to end violence, soft power and hard power, and the like. Others have pointed to addressing the root causes of terrorism and its circumstances.

The death of a world terrorist seems to have been welcomed by many, albeit in different ways, but this is not sufficient to make this complex world a safer place to live.

The writer is an assistant professor in Islamic studies, Religious Studies Department, University of California, Riverside.