Muslim leaders claim society excludes youth

[Canuck E Stan]

Muslim youth are drawn to radical acts because they're marginalized in Canadian society, Islamic leaders warned yesterday.

The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations said government and community leaders must find ways to promote a more peaceful, calm society in the wake of the "homegrown" Toronto terrorism bust that netted five youth suspects.

"Muslim leaders from across Canada are coming forward today in order to extend a hand to all Canadians so we can face together the problems of radicalization," said Karl Nickner, executive director of the council.

Radicalization is not a Muslim issue of faith, but a socio-economic problem, Nickner said, drawing an analogy with the Mafia not being just a problem for the Italian community.

Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Social Services Association, said youth feel they don't belong and are victimized by "Islamophobia."

"So they're marginalized, or they become prey to people who look at the vulnerabilities and prey on that," Siddiqui said.

Muslim leaders claim society excludes youth

Is this true, or are these people out of touch with how most youth of the western world think?

It seems that all youth, and I'm talking about ALL youth ,of all cultures and religions, have a problem of being prey to just about anything,young girls and prostitution,drugs,counter-culture,anything that can warp the young mind.Youth seem to be naive and stupid about many things as they approach adulthood. Muslims are not any different.This is part of being young.

Blaming western society, when the radicalization starts right in their own churches with extreme thinking of their sacred religion,says the answer is right there,in their own backyard.

Typically of being in denial,these adult Muslims say it's someone else's fault.

Society and youth have had struggles since before James Dean and the "they don't understand me" era. Why would Muslim youths be any different. Putting blame on Canadian society for their ills only tells me that it is they that don't understand their own children,or the Western society that they came to join.

Once Muslims accept the fact that it is they that must start do something to help their own children adjust to society,the sooner their youth will be helped.Society can't be the blame for all their ills. We must help all of our youth, and the first place is to to pay attention to what they are doing and it all starts right there at home.

[killjoy]

Is this true, or are these people out of touch with how most youth of the western world think?

I believe there is 'truth' to it, but not relative truth which is all that counts. By relative truth I mean it is accurate but moot if you consider so many immigrant youth are in that position and don't blow shit up.

I actually disagree entirely with what the article seems to be suggesting which is that these TO terrorists were marginalized by the rest of us. This is BS. They were second generation and fully 'Canadianized'. They became 'radicalized' through, apparently, self-appointed religious leadership.....like Rev. Moon.

There are youth in this country that just got here and can't even speak the language(s). I imagine they are very lonely and have plenty of reason to feel 'marginalized'. They are also, statistically speaking, the best behaved. I disagree with the conclusions entirely. I have nothing to go on 'cept going on 14 years of experience with 'militarized' young men and women. They need to rebel, but paradoxically need to do it by conforming to an esoteric group mentality. Not surprisingly, when you strip it away, Left and Right youth are exactly alike. I totally know what makes the 'wrong' ones tick. In my opinion they got to know Canadians too well. Their tacit approval for at least the underdog, if not terrorists. Their 'hatred' of America.

They did it because their Canadian peer group would not hold objection, while their immediate Muslim peer group encouraged it. Read their bios. They were all 'well liked in school' and had 'many friends', until they came under the wing of some psychos, at which point they slowly disengaged from society and 'got weird'. They remind me a lot of Malvo.

What this article suggests is total crap and likely a product of disbelief.

Having said that, I still think...

"Muslim leaders from across Canada are coming forward today in order to extend a hand to all Canadians so we can face together the problems of radicalization," said Karl Nickner, executive director of the council.

...someone should take that hand and quick.

You don't like Afghanistan? Fine. You don't like Bush or Iraq? Well I dunno what that's got to do with us but fine. When you start desperately trying to make up reasonable rationales for this (alleged) crime, then you're really behaving like those poor drooling idiots who spend hours trying to put every peg in the round hole except the round one.....thats the last one they try and only after trying the others over and over again. They were wrong. They were wrong. They were wrong. Surely there's a 'reason' why they wanted to do it, but it wasn't because they were lonely.

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[August1991]

Typically of being in denial,these adult Muslims say it's someone else's fault.

IMV, that's largely it.

Admittedly, anything other than denial raises some extremely difficult questions so denial is the obvious course of least resistance.

There are about 600,000 Muslims in Canada and most are concentrated around Toronto. I suspect many Muslim families are now under stress. Muslim fathers lose alot of prestige in coming to Canada and this makes it hard for them to stay atop their family. (I think frankly that the daughters in such families will determine what direction all of this takes.)

Immigrants to the US know they're going to America. Around the world, everyone knows what America is. OTOH, Trudeau Liberals created the idea (and Mulroney perpetuated it) of a Canada where a foreigner can come here and still be a foreigner while somehow being a Canadian too. I don't think any foreigner really believes that claptrap but it does give an easy excuse to immigrants, facing many difficulties of adapting, to give up trying to learn and to change themselves. They can say, "Well, I am what I am and I'm still Canadian too. Trudeau said so." In addition, we have made it too easy to blame "the system" for individual failure. If a new immigrant has a tough time finding a job, fitting in, making friends, there's an easy excuse of saying, "These people are polite but in truth, they just don't like me as I am. It's they who have the problem, not me."

IME, I have to say honestly that of all immigrants, those from the Middle East face the biggest problem adapting to North America. I'm not sure why that is but I think it's related to feminism, sex and authority.

So, I guess when self-appointed Muslim leaders in Canada decry wayward youth, I can empathize with their bewilderment.

[Canuck E Stan]

Finally an admission by some Muslims , that it is they, that must do something to help turn their youth around, instead of blaming Canadian society.

We failed our youth: Imam

"There is nothing wrong in saying we failed our youth," said Imam Munir El-Kassen at the Toronto and Region Islamic Congregation in North York. "We did not fail them intentionally, but our community was in a formative stage and our youth searching to fill the vacuum within received wrong advice and training.

"We should be more careful in controlling the youth in the public domain — not everybody should be allowed to talk or lead the youth. They are the most vulnerable."

Imam Husain Patel, at the Islamic Foundation of Toronto in Scarborough — where several of those accused prayed in the past — echoed that sentiment.

[gerryhatrick]

Shahina isn't "blaming Canadian society".

She said youth can feel victimized by Islamophobia (none of that on this board) and become marginalized, which makes them easier pray for extremism. It's avalid point, something that should be encouraged not stomped on as you've done.

I can't believe you'd take a headline and run with it, and then get outraged that Muslims are "blaming Canadian society". Life is a little more in depth than a headline.

[Rue]

Well if you have read my replies I have been staunchly supporting Muslims and advising people not to typecast them as all being terrorists.

On the other hand when it comes to this topic, sorry I am not too sympathetic with any attitude that attempts to blame Canadian society for alienating Muslim youth and suggesting it is causing terrorism or extremism.

That is a crock of b.s.

The fact is, young people, teens, regardless of skin colour, religion, race, creed, gender, feel alienated. It is part of growing up and being an adolescent. Its part of having one foot still in the door with Mama and Papa and trying to live by their rules and one foot out the door and thinking they are independent and free to make their own decisions.

The choice youth make to join ethnic groups or gangs and identify with extremism begins and ends as individuals-individuals who have the free choice and often exercise that free choice by giving in to peer group pressure.

We all have gone through it or will go through it. There is pressure to conform. That pressure to conform can take on the appearance of a bandanna and gang rules when you are 16 and then when you hit your thiries, suddenly its the corporate suit and not so different conformist behaviour in the corporate board rooms.

Its b.s. to say Canadian society alienates Muslims any different then it alienates Christian youth or Hindu youth of Jewish Youth or any other youth.

All youth are faced with choices. They have to balance the cultural values of their family with the cultural values of the suburbs and the shit being rammed down their throats through Nike ads, "various recording artists", athletes, movies, etc.

If anything Canadian society has allowed its youth to rejoice and be what-ever they want to be. We need make no apologies to anyone in that regard.

We are lenient and sensitive to our youth.

If someone is a young black man and feeling alienated from mainstream society, that does not rationalize committing crime. Its a cop out to say one commits a crime because they are a victim of society.

Its an insult to all the hard working people from the same black group or ethnic group or religious group who do not resort to terrorism or crime.

Imagine what it is like to be black, be of Jamaican ancestry and work three jobs in Canada and then you hear someone say, they commit crime because society

has discriminated against blacks. It spits in their face and everything they have tried to do. It spits in the face of all immigrants and new Canadians whether they be Muslim or any other faith who bust their butts off to make it.

So sorry, I am not sympathetic to arguements about society being responsible for terrorism or crime. Yah life sucks. Yah life is unfair.....but we are not victims...how we choose to deal with the obstacles life puts before us begins and ends with us as individuals. We have choices unlike many in other countries.

In the case of asking itself, what causes its youth to become extremist, Muslims have to take a cold hard look within their own religious framework and their own societies and how they have inter-related to non Muslims.

I say the same thing about my own community. I say uncategorically, I do not believe my people have an excuse to commit crime or be violent against Christians because my people suffered from over 3000 years of persecution at the hands of Christians. Where would it end?

I also say the same thing to alienated natives who feel no one understands their

despair trying to explain their property rights. I say the same thing to them - I say

its easy to become violent - the challenge, the challenge is in sitting down and trying to talk peacefully with who you perceive to be your enemies - the challenge is in resisting emotion and trying to reason and find compromise. That we all have in us. Whether we all as individuals choose to be civil and respect one another remains the question to be answered.

[killjoy]

Its b.s. to say Canadian society alienates Muslims any different then it alienates Christian youth or Hindu youth of Jewish Youth or any other youth.

+1.

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