mideastmessenger.com

A recent AP story detailed the plans of Omar bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s 26-year-old son, to seek an understanding between Muslims and western nations.

The bin Laden clan hasn’t exactly been known for its efforts in promoting peace.

Omar bin Laden appears to be a far cry from his father’s extremist tendencies. Unlike the turban and beard his father is known to don, Omar bin Laden has dreadlocks that reach half way down his back, a neat goatee, and frequently wears jeans and baseball caps.

“It’s about changing the ideas of the Western mind. A lot of people think Arabs — especially the bin Ladens, especially the sons of Osama — are all terrorists. This is not the truth,” he says.

Omar’s cousin, Wafah Dufour and niece of bin Laden, is an aspiring model and musician in New York whose glamour shots made big news in GQ magazine.

With his 52-year-old British wife, whom he met in Egypt, Omar bin Laden is planning a 3,000-mile horse race across North Africa to promote peace.

Omar bin Laden was trained at one of the notorious al-Qaida training camps that his father is known for, but left Afghanistan for his home country of Saudi Arabia in 2000.

“I don’t want to be in that situation to just fight. I like to find another way, and this other way may be like we do now, talking,” he said.

Like so many young Arabs, Omar bin Laden is of a different generation with different priorities and interests than his parents. Young people in the Arab world are Internet savvy, they’re modern and many of them are sick and tired of their governments’ old ways.

Maybe Omar can teach his father something about getting what you want peacefully.