They seem to have it all – education, money, good looks, social standing, you name it. They wake up in Miami, bathe in Ottawa, eat breakfast in Lagos, lunch in Beijing and sup in Jeddah. The rest of us look on with envy.
But they are signing up to be terrorists; to spew ideologies we cannot understand and carry out acts that seem to be beyond the pale of reason.
Why are the likes of Umaru Mutallab, the son of an ex-chairman of First Bank, and Mohammed, the third son of a retired chief justice of Nigeria, turning to fundamentalist terrorism? What void occupies their being that can only be filled by the dream of a global empire based on a belief system that has nothing to do with true Islam?
This is not a Nigerian phenomenon. Though the menace of ISIS has brought matters into sharp focus, since 9/11, the ‘best’ of the global fundamentalist terrorist network has come from the most unlikely circles: Westernized, affluent, globe-trotting folks, especially Arabs and Africans. But ISIS upped the ante with Caucasians hitting big-time on a head-chopping spree.
We need to get to the root of this deadly development because these big boys and girls are from families and structures that shape our societies, especially the realms of politics and big finance. They can shove aside their conservative dads and mums and take over their family estates to advance their nightmare of a fundamentalist Islamic empire. They can topple governments.
Why are the rich and famous heading for the caves of ISIS and Boko Haram? Is Western civilization so eroded that it has nothing more to offer to the hearts and souls of these jet-setters? The freedom-proclaiming provisions of the American constitution; the ideals of the French Revolution; ancient Greek wisdom; the classics of Voltaire, Rousseau and Hume; even the tenets of Christianity – have all these failed? Or is this the cycle of history whereby a new civilization is taking over the world? In other words, bye-bye Pax Americana, welcome Dar al-harb (abode of war) on a global scale!
It is easy to blame parents for not caring sufficiently about their children; for thinking they can fill their raging young hearts with the material culture, entrapment and education of Europe and North America. It may be there is something basically wrong with how Islam is being transmitted today, thus resulting in distorted teachings that appeal to callow youths who want to change the world. Maybe moderate Muslim clerics and leaders are not stepping up their game in asserting their ideology in the face of the threats from radicals. But then, elements of the former are often regarded as tainted by their association with governments that, despite their claims to Islamic identity, pander to the West. When one recollects that a good number of the parents of these jet-set terrorists are hand-in-gloves with these regimes, the actions of their children can be seen as some sort of rebellion against so-called decadent family values.
This is a complicated matter, particularly for fragile countries like Nigeria. I do not have the answers but together, if we start asking the right questions, answers will come.
Henry C. Onyema
