"GIVE THE MUSLIM YOUTH A REASON TO LIVE"
Youth Update!
THE YOUTH OF EUROPE AND MIDDLE EAST STATS NEWS:
THE RECENT spate of random suicide attacks in Europe, the Middle East
and elsewhere in the world perpetrated by mostly young Muslims cannot
be confronted by the usual drones and bombings intended ostensibly to
decimate the ranks of these young people who have latched on to an
organization sympathizing and articulating their own anger and
frustration, the Islamic State.
Ratcheting up the budget for intelligence and buying more
sophisticated tracking equipment may not prevent these random acts of
violence dedicated to “soft” targets like airports, train stations,
malls and other places where people congregate, for maximum effect.
The funds for these may be better directed at providing the social
infrastructure for these young people to study, to dream to be
engineers, architects or doctors like the rest of the youth around the
world.
These young people are born into oppression… It is as if the
oppression were congenital because they are born in refugee camps, or in
places where unemployment is rank and drug addiction pervasive, and
where crime is an everyday event.
Where is the future for these young people?
How can they dream of becoming any other than the victims of
oppression, of illegal occupation, of all sorts of inhuman experience,
as they conduct their daily lives?
Early in life, the young Muslims understand that they are “The Other”
from which the dominant majority withholds the privileges and rights
fully enjoyed by it. The social distance between the dominant group and
the less numerous groups is becoming wider and wider. The level of
inequality all over the world is increasing as the have-nots outnumber
the haves in large measure.
A high level of ethnocentrism is sweeping the whole of Europe where
extreme rightist parties which used to be in the margins are now moving
mainstream as they conveniently use the migrants, the refugees, as the
main source of their social problems. One head of state of the 28-member
European Union even repeatedly stressed that his country “…cannot
accept the Muslim refugees from Syria and elsewhere in the region
because they may dilute the Christian faith” of his countrymen.
Concertina wires, electrified fences, actual bricks and mortars have
been built to prevent the entry of refugees, which merely reinforces the
divides in the minds of European citizens who style themselves as the
epitome of human rights.
And why are these people moving and uprooting themselves from their places of abode and their places of work?
There is a long enumeration to answer this fundamental question. But I
am sure among the examples that immediately come to mind is the
unwarranted invasion of one country supposedly for harboring chemical
weapons of mass destruction (which chemicals were sold to it by the same
countries that have so accused it). It is well documented that Western
countries and others have closed their eyes to authoritarian regimes
which have deprived citizenries of basic human rights and taken away
their political and civil rights, only because they were located in
geographies where natural resources are available to fuel the continued
improvement of the lives of the citizens of the Western world.
But whoever said life was fair?
But now, those who have brought about the continued marginalization,
the utter lack of opportunities to succeed, the continued deprivation of
the right to a decent life of the mostly Muslim youth, are reaping the
products of their shortsighted policies.
Drones and bombs will not make the IS go away. Increased budgets for
intelligence and equipment to counter terrorism will not stop the
radicalization of the youth.
What is to be done?
What is to be done is for all of us to give the youth—the Muslim youth, particularly—a reason to live.
Clarita R. Carlos, PhD, is a retired professor of political
science at the University of the Philippines and a former president of
the National Defense College of the Philippines.
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