No, this shot wasn't taken in Iraq. We're not that far along yet!I was involved in conversation with a friend of mine about Iraq's youth, specifically it's adolescent population. I've noticed that many kids are becoming becoming designer clothes-wearing, cell phone wielding, American culture clones. I attribute this to the obvious increased exposure to American and western pop culture via movies, the Internet, but mostly by the large western presence here. Iraqi adolescents are becoming culturally comfortable with the west, enthralled by what they see, and are moving away from radical, fundamental Islam, seeking a more reasonable middle way. This may be evidenced by the 15-year old female suicide bomber that recently "just said no". It was her pimping middle-aged husband, who was a radical jihadist, that insisted that she give her life for Allah, and her "oppressive" mother that forced her to follow her husband's wishes. I suppose that if you're a 15 year-old girl and have a choice between wearing a burkha all your life, never going to school, marrying a 30-something year old, chain smoking, overweight husband, versus having an iPod, a cool boyfriend with a car, and wondering what pair of designer jeans to wear today that the path is going to be obvious. For all of it's faults, that's the great thing about western culture, in the eyes of the world's youth it will trump radical Islam, Communism, and any other oppressive system that comes its way.
3 comments:
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 09/02/2008 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
1. Bin Laden's great fear -and that of many other Islamics.
2. Our culture is very attractive.
3. We will conquer them through it unless we are strictly fenced out.
4. Watch the Palestinians carrying on in their designer jeans and sunglasses.
5. Enjoy your very thoughtful writing.
V/R JW
The Saudis that flew the planes into the WTC and Pentagon were not poor and uneducated. They were well off, educated and had the best of the west in regard clothes, technology and toys.
The London bombers were not poor and uneducated. Ther were "westernized" Muslims. They just did not like what the west was doing in Iraq.
It will take more than ipods, levis and play stations to overcome the resentment and indoctirnation of the youth.
South Vietnam, Saigon specificlly, had everything the west did. The North Vietnamese planned for a two year campaign to take it. It took them less than two weeks. Communism won that one.
Materialism might get kids through some of their youth, but the realities of life will soon take their place. If we do not let the people have a truly free country and we treat it as a colony and manipulate it's politcs I don't see western luxuries being what changes the mentality of the Iraqi people. I believe they are just distractions from their immediate conditions
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