Observation ONE - Gang Bangers & Terrorists

Correlation on Violent Acts

A story I read a while ago about the expected gun violence over the Memorial Day weekend in Chicago delved into “why” it is what it is and “how” to fix it.  It stated, in simple terms, that the gang bangers who perpetrate a vast majority of the shootings come from an environment where there is little hope for a good education and a resulting opportunity for success in the workforce.  The kids growing up in that environment may not get the kind of guidance and support that others of us get and are sent to school, in some cases, to get them out of the house and into a place where its somebody else’s responsibility to teach them right from wrong as well as their ABC’s.  So they muddle through in mediocrity; some making it to graduation while others just drop out and become invisible.  With no prospects for the life they see out there in the media and no power to change things in their lives they find comfort with others like themselves and their despondency feeds on those same feelings of their peers.  The gangs of Chicago are made up of people who don’t accept that they have no power.  Their power comes from their union with others like themselves.  Their power comes from overpowering others.  Their power comes from making money illegally and by numbing their feelings of internal powerlessness with drugs and alcohol.

Where am I going with this?

I find a correlation between the experience of Chicago’s community of gangs and the violence that it breeds to that of the followers of ISIS or ISEL or Al Qaeda.  Think about the helplessness a child growing up in Iraq or Syria might feel after years of war and submission to the oppression of dictators.  Think about living through an invasion and occupation by foreign troops, hoping things get better, and they don’t.  Think about the lack of focus on education that is the result.  Think about how the economy is so fragmented that there are no opportunities for young adults to pursue their dreams… if they even have them in the first place.  Let me pull a few sentences from the Chicago experience above and change a few words: 

“With no prospects for the life they see out there in other parts of the world through the media and no power to change things in their lives they find comfort with others like themselves and their despondency feeds on those same feelings of their peers.  The followers of ISIS or ISEL or Al Qaeda are made up of people who don’t accept that they have no power.  Their power comes from their union with others like themselves.  Their power comes from imposing their will on, and overpowering others, in this case, in the name of religion.”

So in both cases it’s about powerlessness and yearning to control your own destiny. 

I know this is not true about all followers of terrorist sects. I know that Osama Bin Laden and the 911 terrorists came from Saudi families whose prospects for the future were more certain.  It’s hard to explain the religious fervor that moves people like this to kill innocents in the name of Allah.  But these are “true fanatical believers”, not the followers who are lured into the group with promises of a release from powerlessness and a path toward enlightenment.

No one seems to have a solution, either in Chicago or the middle-east.  These societal disparities have always existed all over the world.

Some in the US would say it starts with spending more money for public schools; more pay for teachers and more equipment and supplies in the classroom. Will raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour here in the US help solve the problem? Does it start there or does it start with the family’s home environment.  Is there a way to identify “at-risk” children in their early years?  Should society take on the responsibility to “parent” when parents either can’t or won’t assume that responsibility?  Is that too much “socialism” for the conservative elements of our society to choke down?  Or, are we willing to leave things as they are; let law enforcement deal with the problems through the imposition of the fear of arrest and incarceration.  That fear seems to work with only the majority of us who are away from the fringes and have hope for the future. 

In the middle-east do we really have any power over how a country deals with its own educational and economic opportunities?  We tend to think like capitalists.  We think that if we throw money at a problem, either through economic investment or foreign aid we automatically gain influence in how a country evolves.  That might actually be the case if we didn’t first send troops to fight against dissident elements of their society.  After the fighting subsides the perception becomes one of imperialism, US financial self-interest and nation-building.

Is it our place to do more than we have done in helping countries lift their own people out of poverty and despair?  It doesn’t seem to me that our efforts have been fruitful or even appreciated thus far.

The trillion dollars spent in the last two decades on wars in the middle-east would have been better spent on domestic problems like those we are dealing with in Chicago.  At least we would be working toward a time when we can measure our progress by a reduction of violence and the empowerment through employment of an overlooked element of our own society.