Where Teh Boyz Are
Many Westerners are just waking up to the abuse of girls and women within stricter forms of Islam– forced youth-marriage, harems, so-called ‘honour’-killings, and other abuses of basic God-given freedoms.
Yet, there’s a far more basic and obvious problem which– like concern for boys & men in the Western feministified worldview– goes largely undiscussed: the exploitation, abuse, brainwashing and destruction of boys and young men by Jihadism.
Any would-be totalitarian knows that must go after the kids: so the Hitler Youth, the Young Communists, and Jihadism. There’s a mighty, mighty power out there that can change the world: young men with an ideal.
After all, in the opium-fields and deserts of Afghanistan, two sets of highly-motivated idealistic younger men are battling it out on one front in the Jihad versus Civilization contest. In two European World wars, teenagers were given weapons and fought and died for their respective countries.
Low Horizons
Right now, most young men in Middle Eastern countries live in various kinds of police-states or dictatorships, with tiny or non-existent middle-classes, low standards of living, education, literacy, or upwards mobility. There’s not a lot to hope for, except for the very best students (can you say Soharwardy, Elmasry?), usually in scientific fields, who often have a chance to make a decent life at home, or elsewhere.
Crapistan is– well, crappy. Who can be proud of many of these unhappy countries as such? And where is the freedom to dream dreams and speak out, and change the world? Where to channel the longing and energy of young men in such a nightmare or circumstances? In such a mess, the militant apocalypticism of Jihadism is at least a can-do sort of possibility. Dysfunctional, evil, destructive, sure– but a kind of choice, a crusade, as sense of belonging to something bigger.
Fully Alive vs. Zombie-time
At its best, the Christian West offers a vision and a program for transformed humanity & human community; the resurrection of Jesus is the re-creative big bang: the infusion of divine grace and hope and love and faith which can– and has and is literally changing hearts and minds, and the world around us. Jihadism is a zombified and poisonous vision of human nature and society– the task of Christianity is to show forth the possibilities of redeemed human nature, fully alive.
Behind the scenes, the church is growing faster than ever; Jihadism is currently growing mostly on the basis of birthrate. Muslims are converting to Christianity and an unprecedentedly (and unreportedly) high rate; despite the official atheism and hostile officialdom, China leads the world in new Christians and churches.
Here is the true answer to the false answer which Jihadism seemingly provides to young man abroad, and disenchanted young Muslims in the West. The Christian God is unconstrained.
What-now?
Having a bad day? Not as bad as the guys who’ve has 30 years to show off all the goodies of living in an islamist paradise, only to have problems like this:
“Iran: “We find ourselves facing what is more than a conversion to the Christian faith. It’s a mass exodus from Islam.”
Losers say ‘what’? In the terse but expressive phraseology of the East-Coast Canadian fisher-person confronted with the fact that the stern of his fishing-vessel has become detached from the remainder of the hull in a catastrophic manner, “Sweet Jesus, b’y, the arse’s gone right out of her!”
Begging To Differ
Not to disagree with Macleans or our own Mr. Steyn (peace be upon Mark), but mere demographics and Western hand-wringing and Jihadi smoke-blowing are not the final word: the living root of Western Civilization is the Risen Jesus Christ. Even if the course of Western Civ is an endless defeat– yet suffering, death, and resurrection has been revealed as the very fabric, the matrix of visible and invisible reality.
The Jihad is a counterfeit; the Caliphate a false heaven on earth. Many Iranians are longing for a better kingdom which, in fact, exists: the Kingdom of God, reveled in Christ Jesus. Young people in the Islamic world are well smart enough to notice that only the geezers have rights & power over there; that there are no line-ups of exploding mullahs rushing off to die for Jihad; and that maybe nuclear war isn’t really worth the trouble, just to prop up corrupt regimes with little to offer the world, or their own people.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” says God’s only-begotten Son. And what if you combine the power of idealistic young people with the spiritual power of a life-giving faith?
Now, that is truly something to hope for.
Binks
A Swift Sunrise 
Great post! Can anyone imagine a solution to the current global crisis without either Christianity of mass death being a big part of the “solution”? I’ve seen many try to argue the affirmative on that one, but none yet any where near convincing.
The point I’d make to all the secularists who aren’t commenting here is that the truth of Christianity is not simply accessible in religious terms. It is also understandable as true in the language of secular anthropology (see the works of Generative Anthropology, and of GA’s forebear, Rene Girard).
Religion is anthropology (often wiser than anything in academic anthropology) because it is concerned with human origins, with the event of creation that made us different from animals, with the origin of language (in the beginning was the word…) Whether God created man or man created God, we don’t get very far in human self-understanding if we don’t understand why our consciousness is fundamentally dependent on the sacred, the scenic, and the other-worldly guarantor of the sacred, memorable, scene.
Sorry, the above should read Christianity or mass death.
I will celebrate easter a little more serenely in light of your clarification.
Hi,
The dangers of militant Islam are a direct threat to our way of life, and if Canada becomes unable and/or unwilling to defend the interests of Canadian,
I suggest we combine our strength with our American brothers and put ourselves under the god-given protection of the American bill of rights.
We owe it to our children and all future generations to not let our country slip into fascism or become Islamized because of our government’s apathy.
Kind Regards,
Americalex