Priceless Reasoning

"Opportunities to travel and volunteer abroad cannot only channel energy and engender a concern for others, but also take the glamour out of the al-Qaeda narrative and increase appreciation of Western citizens for the rights granted in their own countries." Demos

It comes across as too precious to believe. A British think-tank, of all sources, preaching to the Western world that more work must be done to lead impressionable and vulnerable young Muslim men away from the allure of signing on to violent jihad, and substituting attractive alternatives, like enticing them to allow themselves to be recruited for good works, volunteerism, altruistic pursuits that would better fill the boredom gaps for them.

And save the world a whole lot of grief. Why didn't anyone think of this wonderful solution? It stands to reason that appealing to the better nature of restless young men nursing a grievance and learning to really get into the hate-thing, enjoying themselves immersed into the nitty-gritty of learning how to conduct themselves in a soldierly fashion at Pakistani-based jihad training camps, would save these young men from themselves.

And save us from their bigoted, racialized, quasi-religious, ideological-political violent initiatives. Guess we suffer from an abysmal lack of practical imagination. The British think-tank Demos, however, is to be congratulated for arriving at a formula that would serve to attract and move young Muslims into the direction of good works to salve their irate sensibilities, reacting to "Islamophobia" being exhibited by the world of infidels.

The Edge of Violence, the report issued by Demos, appears to be rife with brilliant ideas. It makes good sense, does it not - to encourage young men who have grown up in Western communities, taken advantage of all the freedoms and opportunities within, inclusive of university education - to appreciate those experiences. Question: why might it be necessary to point out to them how privileged they have been to begin with?

Since homegrown radicalization was pioneered in Britain, and later seen in fewer but still alarming incidences elsewhere, while Britain still remains champion of these emerging jihadists, it puzzles the mind why these delightful solutions are not being put in place there. Why is this think-tank bruiting their solutions toward Canada, Denmark, France and the Netherlands, without first experimenting in the United Kingdom?

Of course the very question of why Muslim youth find violent jihad so appealing should be first addressed. And perhaps the answer is as basic and elemental as youth eternally turning to the forbidden, the excitingly alluring with just the right edge of danger to excite their hormonal passion for adventure. And perhaps, just perhaps, the 'right values' were simply never engrained in them through the home environment.

Mind, it helps when the youth in question are not overburdened with too many brains at birth, and they might have been bypassed by normal genetic endowments leaving them somewhat sociopathic by character. Aided by the fact that for some, the familial atmosphere is conducive to illicit activity and resentment of the prevailing culture in which they find themselves.

Violent extremist groups which solicit recruits in fairly public fora are not all that hard to find. They seem to feel they can operate with impunity as hate mongers and conduits to groups more than willing to train callow youth toward mature terrorists, functioning at a level deemed satisfactory for all concerned.

The researchers whose message is that government and its institutions may not be fully capable of apprehending these activities and protecting the public and the state, may have taken their cue from the British experience. The recommendation that individuals, organizations, communities, must become involved in weeding out, identifying, and offering alternatives to violence-prone youth might be useful to the Muslim community itself.

Which begs the obvious question: why must the Muslim community be instructed in this kind of harm-reduction, rather than see it in and of themselves as their duty and obligation both to their 'vulnerable' youth, and to their communities, and above all, to the country which has given them refuge and the opportunity to live decent lives?

If vulnerable immigrant populations value in any measure whatever the opportunities opened to them by their migration to Western countries, and their place within them, it should be in their vested interest, and an automatic response to firmly eschew the values that are at obvious odds with those of the West. A firm hand should be taken as a matter of course, in directing their youth toward norms that honour the social contract.

Those Muslim groups and communities which benefit from life in Western countries and raise their young to take their place within the larger communities as equal citizens, equally deserving and desiring of all the civil freedoms and opportunities of all other groups, have an especial obligation to identify and counter those groups that espouse other values.

The ignorance with which conspiracy theories are accepted and used to nurse grievances which feed into the general atmosphere of "us versus them", is one that the leaders of Muslim communities must take seriously and make every effort to counteract. The one practical recommendation - that Muslim imams pass language proficiency tests, and an increased deployment of Muslim police officers - seems potentially useful.

And then, in the Canadian context, one ponders on the peculiarities of a revelation that two young Muslim men wanted on murder charges, one of whom escaped the country thanks to the assistance of two other young Muslim men charged as accessories, were enrolled in academic police training classes with the intention of becoming police officers.