Let there be the news of a terrorist incident in the city and instantly watch a Muslim freeze, hold his breath and inwardly pray the same words: "O God, please don't let a Muslim name be in this". More often than not, he is proved wrong. Whether the successful bomber reaches his coveted paradise or not - we may never know - but he certainly leaves the world slightly more hellish for the majority of us Muslims in the West who face the brunt of Islamophobic backlash the next day.
Go through the personality profiles of the perpetrators of 9-11, 7-11, the Theo Van Gogh killing, the Madrid bombing, the Seattle incident, the recent Toronto arrests and a disturbing revelation will hit you. The stereotypical terrorist is young, second (or even third) generation immigrant, male, fairly well-educated - and Muslim.
What is going wrong? This question stands before us as community and stares us in the face - yet, at the community level, our reactions much less our remedies are as inane as ever. What would cause the community's intelligent, educated men, its most precious asset, brimming with life, to become willing volunteers to hurt, kill and maim their innocent fellow citizens in a particularly brutal manner and die in the process? On one hand we have the modernists with their exhausted mantra of blaming the mosque Imams - the tamest sheep of the flock - thereby inflaming the societal fear of turbaned men and veiled women; on the other hand, we hear abject denial and neglect of the issue by our community representatives either through silence or by calling it "mere acts of youthful folly common to all communities”. Both positions are dangerously wrong.
To consider the youth radicalization as the sole enterprise of the neighborhood mosque falsely assigns magical powers to the Friday preacher. It also erroneously ascribes to the youth naiveté and impressionability - a youth who is often born and bred in the West and is a product of the best education the society has to offer. It is entirely misplaced to equate sadistic, vengeful tendencies with a penchant for petty crime. An honest effort is needed to understand the phenomenon, not to simply condemn or ignore it. We do not absolve an evil deed by trying to understand its causes, rather only then are we empowered over it.
The bitter truth is that the typical Muslim youth in the West is haplessly alienated from society. Its desperate search for guidance and role models propels it to fill the corps of any persuasive recruiter with a promise of providing a self identity, direction and an assuaged sense of worth. Perhaps our first-generation notables can not see that this emotional alienation and subsequent search for identity starts from early school years and continues onwards until the post-secondary. Most visibly, the baggy, low-worn jeans, body piercing, bandanas and skimpy outfits in high school, turn into beards and kufis, abayas and hijabs in the university campuses - the search for self continues.
At the university campuses, much like the greater Islamic world, a Muslim finds two narrow orientations of Islam which are to form his view of the faith and of his world; Sufism and Wahabism. Sufism advocates the view that the world is going strictly according to God’s plan (true) and we need not worry too much about what goes on in it, so long as our dhikr and tahajjud is in order (not true). Wahabism on the other hand at times seems obsessively concerned about what ‘the other’ is doing or has done to the Muslims. Some Sufi preachers stress the righteousness of one’s intention to the extent that even innovative acts appear as virtues; the Wahabi preachers end up fussing over the minutest aspects of personal attire and religious rituals. If one group lowers the bar to include even polytheists and innovators as Muslims, the other group elevates the criteria to the extent that a good majority of Muslims end up becoming polytheists themselves.
z-man bar sufi-o mulla salaami ke paygham-e khuda goftand ma raa
walay taweel-e shan dar hayrat andakht khoda-o Jibril-o Mustafa raa
I send greetings to the Sufi and the Mullah (the ritualist) who convey to us the Divine message; however their interpretation (of Deen) has caused to amaze even God, Gabriel and Muhammed (S).
Clearly, we are in need of Islam which represents an authentic _expression of the Muslims residing in the West and relates to their cultural context – and this process may take a couple of generations.
Through my interaction with youth with a visible religious identity, I have noted that the social alienation emergent in late teens is often symptomatic of profound emotional alienation experienced by the individual during his early childhood years. Bitter experiences during the formative years (especially in school) can imprint one with a distorted worldview and chalk the future path of the individual in that direction. News of Muslims being persecuted, exiled, jailed, killed, targeted under suspicion and humiliated by Western nations resonates most disturbingly in the mind of the youth who suffers from (the sense of) social marginalization. It reassures him of the irreconcilable divide between the society and himself and of the evil nature of the Western leadership and its compliant masses. The problem is never purely ‘religious’ but unfortunately finds its most forceful _expression in religious terms, ranging from self-righteous condemnation of others (infidels and non-observant Muslims) to open justification of their murder. At this stage it is only a matter of time before a radical group with charismatic leadership steps in and shows him how to channel these feelings to their practical conclusion. Surprisingly, often all this happens under the noses of unsuspecting parents.
We as a community must embark on two initiatives to combat the larger problem of youth alienation. The first initiative must start from the family and the other must emerge from the community at large.
It needs little mention that the family lays the character foundation of the child and defines his impression of the outside world. A healthy and supportive family ensures healthy and supported children. It is truly sad that Muslim parents in Western societies sacrifice loving supervision and caretaking at the altar of opportunities for earning higher income and pursuing their career goals. I do not include those parents who need to work for survival but those who do it for selfish reasons. The unavailability of parents at a child’s time of need sends this clear message to the child: You are important – but only after my career. We must return to the Islamic designation of gender roles in the family that have worked well for centuries; the man must work to earn for the family and the woman must ensure that the family is well supervised at home in his absence. Secondly, let us set aside some time every day to communicate with our children and do it with an honest attempt of seeing things from their world. Even if you can not solve their problems right away but are willing to show them love by carefully listening to them, this will grant them enormous security and comfort. (It is amazing to note how reading bedtime stories to younger children for five minutes every day leaves a profound impact on their psyche). Youth delinquency is often a direct cause of parental neglect and laziness.
As community, we must provide the youth public forum for self _expression and appreciation. Sadly the NAMF Speech Competition conducted every year still awaits full participation from the Islamic School principals and the parents. We strongly realize the continued need for such events for the sake of the child that needs to be heard (The Islamic soccer league is also a great idea along those lines). Our community media must be on a constant look out for youth role models and high achievers and bring to light their accomplishments for us all. They deserve to be known and we deserve to know them. Why must the Muslim figures on the news be consistently those of a hateful and subversive bent? (Recently the Pakistani born Uzma Vakani 18, just graduated from Holy Trinity School in Oakville with a 96.2 percent average and proudly claimed in an interview: "My religion is a big part of who I am as a person" – has any local Muslim media cared to cover her story?).
Our community is largely comprised of youth hence it makes sense to organize community events that cater to their interests and issues. At the same time, many Muslim parents need to be educated through interviews, seminars, discussion groups and talk shows on how to form better and more intimate relationships with their children. We must make these attempts to bridge the gulf between the two posed by differences in generation, culture, age and priorities.
Otherwise, the next report of a Muslim youth exploding and killing innocents will not only count as a terrible loss to the parents, the victims, and the society, but in particular, being Muslims, it will serve as a stark reminder of the failure of us all as community.
Sheharyar Shaikh is the President of North American Muslim Foundation. He is specializing in contemporary Islamic thought and modernity
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