What’s Radicalizing the Home-Grown Terrorists?
It’s happened again, this time with a truck. Sayfullo Saipov drove a truck into a group of bicylcists in Lower Manhattan, killing eight and injuring 11. While the shoot-from-the-lip president promptly blamed our immigration policy, early investigation shows that Saipov came from Uzbekistan–which is not on Trump’s terror watchlist–and that he was radicalized after he came to America. In fact, Homeland Security has already pointed out that most U.S.-based violent extremists get to be that way after they arrive on our shores, and after any vetting process might have screened them out.
So the question to ask is, why?
I have an idea, which goes all the way back to the Columbine School massacre. What everyone wanted to know was, why would Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold come to school one day and blow away 12 of their classmates and a teacher? But as their background filtered through all the news stories, I learned that they had been bullied. And I said, “Oh.” That kind of long drawn-out “oh” that means, “Okay, that makes sense.” Not right. Not even forgivable. But at least a little more understandable.
You see, I was bullied through most of high school, which in our districts covered grades 7 through 12. Some of that is no doubt my fault. I was a dork; I lacked the ability to read social cues; I was different, which human society cannot abide. So I was constantly taunted and humiliated, making my school days a living hell, and graduation that distant day when my prison term would end. Of course I never thought of taking the .22 rifle to school and ending the nightmare that way, but I understood the dark place Harris and Klebold were coming from.
Getting back to the home-grown terrorists: If they turn deadly only after they get to our shores, maybe we need to look at what happens after they get here. Are they taunted, pushed around or even beaten up by bullies? Are they called “Towel-head” or whatever the common epithet is today? Are they made to feel like second- or third-class citizens in this land of privilege?
This is not political correctness gone amuck. It’s common sense, an acknowledgment of the human version of Newton’s third law of motion, which is that action causes reaction, sometimes out of all proportion. If you tease a dog, you risk being bitten. If you call someone a filthy name, you risk getting his fist in your offensive mouth. If you march like hooligans, year after year, into Irish-Catholic neighborhoods to rub their noses in the fact that they lost the war with England a couple hundred years ago, you should not be surprised when they arrange a rematch on their own terms.
The answer lies in the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is human precept, not Christian. A version of it is found in all the major religions. It is good for your soul, but also good social policy. It encourages your neighbor to reciprocate kindness for kindness. It is the start back to a sane world.
I know this will not counter the craziness of fundamentalist extremism. But not all of terrorists start out in that place, as has been testified to by their bewildered parents. Keep in mind that when children and even adults feel the pain of rejection, they generally return to homes that have internet connections, where they find sites that offer not just solace, but revenge. Let’s give them less reason to go looking for it.