Thank God for Middle-Age!
This is a repeat of an article I wrote about a year ago!
Thank God for Middle-Age
My wife spent three years in Saudi Arabia in the 1980's and from her observations I can surmise that the average Muslim in the Middle East is poor, uneducated, family oriented and extremely religious. We are not talking about the middle-class or the elite here but just the average Joe,
- or Ali.
The guy on the street in the Middle East (remeber women in Saudi and many other places are not allowed to go anywhere on their own!) has a distorted view of the world because of assholes like this; He explains the difference between men and women.
The Matawah, (religious police) on the other hand are usually young men in their teens or early twenties who do this more for the sake of being in positions of authority than out of any religious conviction.
They might best be described as thugs and hooligans who revel in terrorizing the average person on the street. When passing them it is wise to avert your eyes and look down so you do not incur their wrath, after all they can throw you in jail for any reason and frequently do so.
(Believe me you don't want to be in a Saudi jail. It's about the same as a Turkish jail and for anyone who has seen the movie "Midnight Express" you know what I mean)
As for the terrorists themselves I came across some fascinating information. According to Marc Sageman, a man with the unusual background of a CIA case officer and then a psychiatrist, he had some interesting observations in his book Understanding Terror Networks.
Sageman argues that we are facing something closer to a cult network than an organized global adversary! Like many cults, Muslim terrorists thrive by channeling and perverting the idealism of young people.
As a forensic psychiatrist, he analyzed data on about 400 Jihadists. He found that they weren't poor desperate sociopaths, but rather restless young men who were frustrated by the lack of opportunities in their own country and found identity by joining the terrorist underground.
In fact, ninety percent came from normal intact two parent families, 65 percent had gone to college, 75 percent were either professionals or semi-professionals, and 75 percent were married.
(They see the riches of the people in the United States that is portrayed in the media - and then hate them because they do not have the same opportunities in their countries!)
What transformed these young Sunni Muslim men was the fellowship of Jihad and the militant role models they found in people like Osama bin Laden. The terror training camps in Afghanistan were considered a kind of elite finishing school.
The 9/11 hijackers weren't psychotic killers. In fact none of them had a criminal record! Sageman went on to say that in terms of their psychological profiles, they were as healthy as the general population.
Now here comes the interesting part. The implications of Sageman's analysis is that the Sunni Jihadism of al-Qaida and its spin-off groups is a generational phenomenon.
Unless new grievances spawn new recruits, it will gradually die out as their members mature.
Thank God for Middle-Age!
Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com and the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com
Thank God for Middle-Age
My wife spent three years in Saudi Arabia in the 1980's and from her observations I can surmise that the average Muslim in the Middle East is poor, uneducated, family oriented and extremely religious. We are not talking about the middle-class or the elite here but just the average Joe,
- or Ali.
The guy on the street in the Middle East (remeber women in Saudi and many other places are not allowed to go anywhere on their own!) has a distorted view of the world because of assholes like this; He explains the difference between men and women.
The Matawah, (religious police) on the other hand are usually young men in their teens or early twenties who do this more for the sake of being in positions of authority than out of any religious conviction.
They might best be described as thugs and hooligans who revel in terrorizing the average person on the street. When passing them it is wise to avert your eyes and look down so you do not incur their wrath, after all they can throw you in jail for any reason and frequently do so.
(Believe me you don't want to be in a Saudi jail. It's about the same as a Turkish jail and for anyone who has seen the movie "Midnight Express" you know what I mean)
As for the terrorists themselves I came across some fascinating information. According to Marc Sageman, a man with the unusual background of a CIA case officer and then a psychiatrist, he had some interesting observations in his book Understanding Terror Networks.
Sageman argues that we are facing something closer to a cult network than an organized global adversary! Like many cults, Muslim terrorists thrive by channeling and perverting the idealism of young people.
As a forensic psychiatrist, he analyzed data on about 400 Jihadists. He found that they weren't poor desperate sociopaths, but rather restless young men who were frustrated by the lack of opportunities in their own country and found identity by joining the terrorist underground.
In fact, ninety percent came from normal intact two parent families, 65 percent had gone to college, 75 percent were either professionals or semi-professionals, and 75 percent were married.
(They see the riches of the people in the United States that is portrayed in the media - and then hate them because they do not have the same opportunities in their countries!)
What transformed these young Sunni Muslim men was the fellowship of Jihad and the militant role models they found in people like Osama bin Laden. The terror training camps in Afghanistan were considered a kind of elite finishing school.
The 9/11 hijackers weren't psychotic killers. In fact none of them had a criminal record! Sageman went on to say that in terms of their psychological profiles, they were as healthy as the general population.
Now here comes the interesting part. The implications of Sageman's analysis is that the Sunni Jihadism of al-Qaida and its spin-off groups is a generational phenomenon.
Unless new grievances spawn new recruits, it will gradually die out as their members mature.
Thank God for Middle-Age!
Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com and the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com
Labels: generational, humor satire, matawah, terrorists
posted by Allan W Janssen | 2:43 a.m.
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