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A new phenomenon has me rather troubled: bored youngsters embracing extremist ideologies who end up perpetrating heinous crimes. The path to radicalisation of these youngsters is not understood, hence the puzzlement and astonishment when we hear of such incidents.
A recent example is that of the Bangladesh four, who came from affluent backgrounds and had high levels of education. Earlier, we have the example of Saad Aziz and Faisal Shahzad. And even earlier there was Omar Sheikh. These are just the Pakistanis. What we don’t know is how many youngsters from other countries are also following similar paths.
In the entire galaxy of militant fighters across the world, this breed of youngsters might not be in a majority, but the increasing numbers who are taking up arms is an alarming trend. Those who join militias as basic fighters might well come from deprived backgrounds — who are not fighting in the name of any ideology. And those who are radicalised in religious seminaries similarly tend to come from backgrounds where the full spectrum of opportunities afforded by the modern world is not available to them.
But what’s going on with these affluent few? If this was a simple case of thrill-seekers who join up in a fight because they understand it to be a little like a video game, that would be one thing.
Read: Educated militants
What’s going on with these affluent few? Their actions have shown a ruthlessness and bloodlust that normal people would recoil from.
These few whose cases we are familiar with have shown a ruthlessness and bloodlust that normal people would recoil from. They have beheaded people with their own hands, shot up busloads of the most innocent members of society while giggling in delight, and slashed people with machetes. This is more than just ideology that they have internalised. Somewhere along the line, their bodies have been taught to shed the inhibitions against such heinous violence that are instilled from a very young age.
So where does ferocity of this sort come from in the mind and body of a youngster raised in a bourgeois life? This is not blind rage, nor is it desperation. It is something far less edifying that is speaking through the actions of these youngsters. A basic anomie, a ruthless sensory indulgence, a disconnect with the world around them that sets them on a shallow and misguided search for answers.
I do not pretend to know all the answers to how youth from affluent and bourgeois backgrounds gets mixed up in such heinous acts. But I do have a few insights from once having been a teacher.
First is the absence of any meaningful liberal arts education. With no real critical thinking abilities, young minds are left particularly vulnerable to shallow interpretations of events. As the world becomes more violent, and the actions of states lose all moorings in morality and ethics, a quest for answers burns brighter in the minds of the youth, who are usually smarter than their parents and in most cases, smarter than their teachers too. Their experience tells them that those who make up the little, bubble-like life they lead in their elite enclaves know nothing about the great conflicts and petty injustices that are devouring the world around them, and worse still, that none of them really cares beyond paying lip service.
Second is a dysfunctional relationship with their parents. I have been struck at the number of times I see youngsters living multiple lives that are neatly compartmentalised. One is the life they live for the benefit of their parents, a theatre dominated by deferential silence and ritualised forms of obedience in their day-to-day interactions. The other is their real life, lived with their peers.
At its root, this dysfunction owes itself to a shallow idea of what being a parent really means. On many occasions, I have observed parents who only spoke to their children to either shout at them or lecture them, never to just talk or discuss things. What’s more, the message the children often received from their parents was that nothing beyond a high-paying career matters. Take no courses that will not directly lead to a high-paying job, they advised. Encourage no hobbies, no reading habits, no informed discussion about anything in life, the world, nature, science. Get a job in a tech firm or a bank. Nothing else matters.
Many of the youth were able to operate within the narrow confines of this world, but others rebelled. Even amongst those who obeyed, many had problems later in life, for instance in keeping their marriages intact.
So for a youngster whose mind is fired by the rapid descent of the world into chaos and conflict, who finds no foothold to establish his or her bearing in the confusing flux of this rapidly changing world, and is not equipped to mount a search for answers at all, it is only natural that he or she turn to those who proclaim that they have all the answers, and embrace the notion that a simple ideology can explain it all.
But the embrace of ideology does not explain the de-conditioning of the body to perpetrate extreme violence. Clearly, these youngsters have been able to evade parental monitoring and secretly undertake training that overrides their reflexes. In the case of Saad Aziz, for instance, we know he travelled to Fata to undertake exactly such training, whether or not his parents knew. In the case of the Bangladesh four, it was pathetic to watch their parents sob before interviewers, saying they had “no idea” that their son had become mixed up with such elements. The only way they could have “no idea” of the changes going on in the lives of their own offspring, who lived in the same house, was if the disconnect between parent and child was so complete as to blind the elders totally to the truth about their own offspring.
The writer is a member of staff.
Twitter: @khurramhusain
Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2016
