A son of Osama Bin Laden is a painter and is inspired by the landscapes of westerns of the United States: know his work

Omar bin Laden, fourth son of Osama bin Laden, lives in France with his wife, whom he met in 2006, and among the horses. There, in Normandy, a region known for its landscapes of fields and beaches, he managed to rebuild his life thanks to his passion for painting, he told the American magazine Vice.

The far west

“Some of my mother’s family are very artistic. My mom loves to paint, as does one of my sisters. My uncle was also a good artist. So the need to draw and paint is in my blood»Clarifies the son of the former head of al-Qaeda.

In 2020, taking advantage of the confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and thanks to the impetus of his wife Zaina, also passionate about art, Omar produced around ten paintings. In a painting, he recreated the mountains of Tora Bora, where his father hid after September 11, 2001.

He mainly paints landscapes, from the Nile desert to the American Far West, with its dead trees and cattle skulls, which is ironic given Osama bin Laden’s hostility to this country. Omar was never in America before, he said, “I like old western movies. Respect for cowboys. I love the dignity of the cowboy. “

“I miss the peace of childhood”

All his paintings have childish simplicity, Vice specifies, stressing that by speaking to him, one has the impression that with painting, he returns to the lost tranquility of his distant youth, in front of so much violence.

“I miss the fun times I spent, the times when I was too young to know and too innocent to see the world around me. I miss the vast expanses of desert dunes and rolling seas. I miss the peace of childhood, ”says Omar.

After suffering from bipolar disorder and psychological scars from her upbringing, she says she has now achieved “a kind of inner peace ”, thanks in large part to painting. “I want the world to know that I have grown up, that I am comfortable with myself for the first time in my life, that the past is the past and that you have to learn to live with what happened, ”he emphasizes.

His father, an austere patriarch

Omar bin Laden also evokes his relationship with his father, with whom he has never been particularly close. Osama was an austere patriarch who deprived his children of toys, beat them, and then tried to convince them to volunteer for suicide missions.

Omar was 15 when he was taken to Al Qaeda training camps near Tora Bora, and 16 when he was taken to the front lines of the Afghan Civil War. At the age of 18, he finally decides to leave the al-Qaeda mission to travel with his mother to Syria.

The last time he saw his father was in his concession in Afghanistan in 2001, a few months before the September 11 attacks. Omar has repeatedly condemned these attacks in the past, distancing himself from his paternal heritage and denouncing Al Qaeda for the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians.

Originally posted by RFI

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