I’m starting to wonder if some young people are just unusually susceptible to the enticements of cults, violent or otherwise. This story is just so, so baffling.
Some older people as well. The word for them is “dumb” people.
But they’re clearly NOT “dumb,” @Vladenschlutte. That’s what makes the whole thing so difficult to understand.
scary
Yes they are. They are dumb. I don’t care if they were honors students or not. They are dumb.
People who aren’t dumb don’t leave the US to go join ISIS.
Need I say more?
The disbelief is, IMHO, rooted in a peculiar concept that we are somehow responsible because ISIS and similar Islamist philosophies must appeal to the disaffected and the alienated. We look for reasons in personal history and focus most on any disadvantages: he had a setback, his father lost his job, etc. That is wrong: ISIS and Islamist ideology actively appeals to Muslims. The ideology supposes paradise can exist, that Islam must rule the world, that you as a Muslim are responsible for bringing about God’s will on earth and you will be rewarded in heaven for your actions here on earth.* I would say we are generally guilty of paternalistic racism in our attitudes about this, not Islamophobia - which is becoming a method by which Muslim “scholars” deflect criticism of Islam - but rather treating ISIS and other Islamists as creatures reacting to us instead of as people who actively use their brains to make conscious decisions. They choose this. They choose to inflict violence. They want to take over the world.
I suggest reading the NYT’s piece about the “godly rape” sanctioned by ISIS, with young girls saying men would tell them this was mandated by Allah and praying before raping them and then praying again afterwards. A choice to rape, a choice to kill, not a reaction of disaffection but a clear choice of earthly violence to bring about their version of heaven and so they can receive their rewards in heaven.
This, btw, is why propaganda is useless: the more we argue “democracy is better”, the more they see us as stupid and weak, the more their ideology becomes attractive to those who want to believe God mandates this and mandates that and prohibits this and that. This occurs in every single religion among the devout: the more you pressure them about the real world, the more they refuse it, the more, for example, Haredi Jews turn inward toward more devotion. But it is of course Islam that generates violence and this level of brutality worldwide and it is Islam which generates people who choose to believe that the West must be subjugated.
*Yes, there are obvious similarities to Christian theology and Christian colonialism, etc., though with partial exceptions - notably some Spanish conquest - the theology was clearly subordinate to blunt greed and conquest was a way to obtain gold and other wealth with Godly stuff attached somewhere toward the back end.
I have no idea what possesses these young people, but this phenomenon is not limited to the US. For example:
Most of their recruits from outside the Middle East are from Europe, they don’t recruit many from the US.
But yes, there are dumb people in every country.
The young woman was raised in a Christian home, not Muslim.
“The young woman was raised in a Christian home, not Muslim.”
But that is the exception, by far, not the norm.
There was another story in the Times recently of a young Christian woman being recruited by ISIS. Fortunately, her grandmother intervened before it was too late. Unlike the MSU student, however, this young woman also suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and was desperate to escape her life, so she was likely pretty easy to mislead.
There are dumb people of every religion. And dumb Atheists too.
And most “dumb” people don’t join ISIS. Being “dumb” hardly explains any of this.
On the surface, it is very easy to say these people are dumb, naive, you name it, but that is a misleading idea, because that assumes this is about rational thought, or about thought at all. This is about emotions, and they aren’t rational. Of course ISIS tends to attract Muslims, that doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, as muslims the people joining will be familiar with the Q’Ran, and will be familiar with the language of it, and will be a lot more susceptible to what they are claiming then someone who is Christian or non religious. It is no different than Christian fundamentalism draws most of its members from people who already were Christian, and it is because it is the same faith the person grew up with, albeit doing things differently.
The problem is people have been drawn to the narrative that this is about poor Muslims who are disaffected with bad regimes, economic inequality and the like, and therefore think this will bring them paradise. The problem is that is a stereotype, one with some truth to it, but also very shallow. I am old enough to remember the 1960’s (or the tail end of that era), the hippies, groups like the SDS, the weather underground, you name it, and there is one striking thing about many of the members of those groups…they were not the poor, they were often well educated, middle and especially upper middle income kids, who turned from prep schools and elite schools to bombing things. These were often the sons and daughters of privilege, corporate families, dad and/or mom were doctors, you name it…the problem is disaffection can come from a lot of things, a family that is more concerned with wealth and status then their kids, for example, who spend their days working high powered jobs and their evenings socializing and doing other things, while their kids were raised by nannies and such. Maybe the boy in this case, whose dad was well off, was rebelling against who his father was (that charming man could be a rotten father), and ISIS looked like ‘real’ islam rather than the “fake Islam” of his father. The girl is in love with the guy, but more importantly, I doubt it is a coincidence that she is a black woman in the deep south, where racism is not exactly unknown, and perhaps she saw in ISIS something that says it is all about living life into Allah’s word and as such, all are equal, there are no divisions (and folks, before you accuse me of saying the girl’s reasoning is real, or that God forbid ISIS really is what they say, forget it, I am not saying that, I know what ISIS is). Among other things, the message ISIS sends is a warped version of the social justice that is a major part of the Islamic faith, they send out the message that by living their version of things, there are no differences, all is as Allah intended it, etc…
Obviously the message is total bs, and ISIS are a bunch of thugs using theocracy to justify their state, and there are a lot of people who fall for it. There is no doubt that someone whose life is one of deprivation is more likely to fall for stuff like this (read up sometime about the followers of both Charles Coughlan and Huey Long in the US in the 1930’s), but this can also appeal to the disaffected but well off, too.
Meanwhile, Muslim civilians are probably the main victims of the bloodthirstiness of Daesh/ISIS/ISIL:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/06/there-s-no-such-thing-as-radical-islam-there-are-only-terrorists-who-are-muslim.html
And the behavior of Daesh/ISIS/ISIL is criticized as un-Islamic in many ways by Islamic scholars:
http://www.lettertobaghdadi.com/
^^Pretty sure most people know that by now.
However, what is pathetic, is that many of the young people who are attracted to ISIS are highly religious Muslims. Now that ought to really worry the Muslim civilians (and I’m sure it does).
@ucbalumnus :
I don’t think that many Muslims think ISIS is legitimate, or that their theology is true to Islam. However, part of the problem with Islam is that it is like some forms of Protestant Christianity (talking non mainstream Protestant), there is no central authority in the religion, there is no Curia or body regulating it, basically anyone can claim to study the Q’ran, and can claim authority, the way that in some forms of Christianity anyone can open a store front church and claim authenticity.
That said most Muslim theologians and scholars are horrified at ISIS, as are many ordinary Muslims. What concerns me, though, is that that horror is not really backed by action. The same people who get incensed when, for example, someone publishes a cartoon they think defames Islam or Mohammed, who will be out on the streets protesting or rioting, are quiet at the horrors of Isis. The Mullah’s of Iran and other Islamic thelogians and leaders condemned Salmon Rushdie for ‘defaming Islam’ and even put a price on his head, yet as far as I know, no one has done so with the leaders of ISIS, the Saudis, whose brand of Islam, W’habbi, puts itself out there as the ultimate in Islamic practice, have done very little to nothing in terms of ISIS, same with the other Oil Sheikdoms and such, yet ISIS probably defames Islam more than any book could (sorry, but using young women as sex slaves? Raping them while praying over them?). Ordinary Muslims should be worried, because ISIS does promise to defame their faith and also put them in jeopardy, and the Islamic world has to realize that a)they cannot condemn ISIS with one side of their mouth, while in the other ‘explaining’ how ISIS is caused by the evil west and b)basically do nothing, and have people think they are against ISIS in any meaningful way. When Indonesia (which I believe is the largest Islamic country in the world by population) shows the same kind of zeal against ISIS that they do against people for denigrating or blaspheming Islam (you can go to jail for some pretty significant time there if you are convicted of heresy or denigrating the faith) or other Islamic countries support the fight against ISIS, when people are out there protesting ISIS the way they do a book or cartoons, that will be proof. Frankly, what Islamic scholars and theologians write is basically empty words, because they likely are not going to influence anyone from joining ISIS,a nd also likely are not going to spur a call to arms against ISIS either.
ISIS doesn’t just target the ultra religious, a lot of the people who have been joining ISIS may have been of Muslim background, but most of them showed little interest in religion until they decided to join, what is scary is a lot of the people have been “Geez, we never would have thought it would be him/her, they never showed any interest in the faith” rather than “Oh, yes, I am not surprised, he was always so devout”.
Seems like most of the forces on the ground that are fighting Daesh/ISIS/ISIL (Iraqi government, Iraqi Kurdish forces, Syrian government, Syrian Kurdish rebels, other Syrian rebels) are predominantly Muslim.
That’s why they’re called terrorists. I suspect many mainstream Muslims are terrified to speak out against ISIS. Heck, even Al Qaeda had denounced them.