Heh.

Well, yes. For many. But not all. Take that guy selling candy and cigarettes on the streets of Jakarta, for instance. OBL is not an iconic figure for him, he's merely some guy on a t-shirt. (the sixth image)

I would argue that OBL is an iconic figure to many. In the truly graphic sense at least. Not in the religious icon sense. But then, I am often iconoclastic.

OBL is such an iconic figure in my world that it took me a goooood long time to figure out what OBL stood for.

like the ODB

OBL is the new Goldstein.

One of my best friends is an Indonesian who has been living in the US for a few years now.

OBL is just a violent nutcase to her.

Though the Indonesia she's described is clearly a place that's a bit wilder than what most of us immediately picture. An example of this, she (and many others) kept flags for every single Indonesian football team in her car. That way no matter who won, she could wave the flag to "celebrate" the victory.

She did this because if you didn't, there was a decent chance that somebody would throw rocks at your car.

Probably not, but keep in mind that Indonesia is mostly Muslim and has the world's largest Mulim population. Also it has Islamic fundamentalism and a lot of instability. It's a Third World country.

Indonesia does not only have problems with petty vandalism. During the 1998 revolution mobs of people loose in the streets were attacking ethnic Chinese. For example, my college friend's relatives said they saw a mob attack a woman in the street and cut off her arm. You won't see this in any newspaper, partly because the Indonesian government has been discriminating against and trying to eject ethnic Chinese from the island for decades. People did not leave their houses for weeks. Any Indonesian's conception of Osama bin Laden needs to be understood in the context of current Indonesian events, of their education level, and of what information the government has allowed them to receive.