As the Middle East slouches toward Armageddon, many Americans fondly imagine that our awesome military might will suffice to contain the undeniable threats which confront us. This fantasy is reinforced by the notion that radical Islamic political actors have no real grievances, but are simply "evil. " And evil, we are solemnly told, has no origins or causes that need concern us.
This cartoon cowboy perspective is deeply dangerous to American interests. The truth is far darker: The appeal of utopian fanatics such as the followers of Osama bin Laden to many young Muslims stems from the profound economic, social, political and cultural crisis confronting the Middle East. The existence of this crisis is entirely unsurprising. After all, the transition to a modern, educated, urbanized, industrial society, from a society of illiterate farmers has always been traumatic.
Recall how difficult this transition was in Europe and East Asia, whose modern history often reads like a horror novel: World Wars I and II; Stalin's gulag and Hitler's Holocaust, or Japanese fascism, the Chinese revolution, the "Great Leap Forward" famine, and the Cultural Revolution. Why should we expect Middle Easterners to do better than Europeans or East Asians?
The most important fact to remember about the Muslim Middle East is that most people there are young. Two-thirds of Muslim Middle Easterners are younger than 30, half are younger than 20, and 40 percent have yet to reach their 15th birthday. For the first time in history, many of these youths have received some education. Although they have enough education to make the old, difficult, dirty jobs unsatisfying, they have not acquired the skills to perform successfully in the modern hyper-competitive global economy.
Their governments have failed miserably in nearly every aspect of economic policy, with the result that unemployment has soared and living standards have plummeted for more than a decade. In some countries, levels of unemployment are similar to those seen in the United States only during the worst days of the Great Depression. After 10 to 15 years of governments' tinkering with economic policy, in no country has the rate of economic growth been sufficient to reduce unemployment and to raise living standards significantly. Such a failure has spawned profound discontent.
Of course, their anger transcends economic hardship. Youth politics have always and everywhere focused not merely on material goods, but also on questions of identity, justice and morality. (Consider the politics of the Baby Boomers during the 1960s in the United States.) Impatience – and Manichean thinking – are among the burdens of youth politics, whether in Berkeley or in Cairo. As criminologists tell us, the resort to violence is also overwhelmingly a youth phenomenon.
Why do so many of these youths turn to radical Islamism? This is a hugely complex question, but here are a few of the pieces of the puzzle. Governments are overwhelmingly unelected and violently repressive; they provide no legitimate outlet for discontent. Governments and the old ideologies, largely varieties of nationalism, have failed to deliver either material goods or a sense of dignity, whether at home or abroad. Foreign policy failures, from Palestine to Kashmir to Bosnia, have further corroded states' legitimacy. Nationalist rhetoric has been translated into the language of political Islam, a language which resonates not only with peoples' religious sentiments, but also with their sense of national humiliation.
As George Orwell once said, "the nationalism of defeated peoples is necessarily revengeful and shortsighted." As fiscally strapped governments cut funding for public services, privately funded Islamist schools, clinics, hospitals and welfare agencies filled the breach, lending credence to the Islamists' claim that "Islam is the solution!" Such activities have been generously funded for decades by both private and public sources from the Persian Gulf. Finally, in the absence of viable, practical solutions, desperate people often follow Pied Pipers (remember Mao?) with their mythic appeals.
Vast pools of unemployed, semi-educated youth, newly plugged into international communication networks, ruled by unaccountable elites, forced to endure repeated national humiliations, and increasingly speaking the language of political Islam, serve up a toxic witches' brew indeed. Nor can this brew be sweetened easily.
During the next 15 years, another 100 million young people will be born, governmental policies are unlikely to improve dramatically and the rising tide of despairing, angry, humiliated young men and women will continue to swell. Simple solutions are not at hand; obviously, doing everything possible to improve the economies of the region (including making governments more accountable) while moderating our addiction to oil (in order to reduce our vulnerability to upheavals in the region) would be prudent.
Sadly, our government does next to nothing on either front.
President Bush does have one thing right, however: This crisis will not be over soon. The future is unlikely to be pleasant, and "quick fixes," particularly of the military type, will do little to enhance our own security. Only the emergence of a life of dignity for all of those angry young men and women will do that. Until then, expect the witches' brew to bubble over – repeatedly.
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