ISIS phenomenon: the illusion of intimacy

Social media is probably one of the most insidious misnomers in use today. It entices tech savvy young people to become reliant on the internet to fill their social needs. A belief that connecting with others through the web, via twitter, Facebook, Skype and other digital sites, can replace intimacy has developed a void in western culture. Individuals are taking solace in the safety of internet friendships to avoid the hurt that can accompany face-to-face contact.

Social media is, in fact, anything but social. In actuality, it promotes isolation and it is through the safe surroundings of a person’s sheltered room that the illusion of intimacy is created. But is it safe? What are the consequences of trusting a typed word or a projected image emanating from the other side of a computer connection? What is the true nature of the person using the keyboard or facing a camera? This terminology, “illusion of intimacy,” dramatically explains what lures people into a relationship of trust where, in most instances, trust is neither earned nor appropriate. Developing friendships takes effort, which the internet bypasses, allowing people to believe they are creating closeness when individuals often intentionally misrepresent themselves. This is the realm of the predator: pedophiles stalk the internet for victims and zealots trawl social websites for the naïve and disillusioned. The newest predator on the block is ISIS. Reaching out to disenchanted young people through the disembodied internet are manipulators like Ahmad Abousamra, a French-born social media wiz who carries dual citizenship in Syria and the USA. The old adage, “it takes one to know one” may be fitting here as this 32-year-old man, raised in an affluent household of a Massachusetts endocrinologist, may have been seeking something that he felt his life lacked – purpose.

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This is the hook that snares young people skimming the internet searching for a cause that captures their fancy – global warming, anti-capitalism and now, anti-western culture. The question that should be asked is, why? It appears that most of the individuals ensnared by the ISIS phenomenon, which falls under the anti-western culture label, have been young men of privileged background. Being raised with plenty, what was it they lacked?

These are the new jihadis, flexing their muscles in a faux spiritual fight against unstructured, spontaneous consumerism

The answer is avoided, sidestepped and ignored by all but those who recognize the value of a spiritual upbringing. For decades western culture has increasingly denied the necessity of it, to the point where even parochial schools spend more time comparing religions than teaching the doctrines of their own. Spiritual relativism has seeped into education, public and private. If secularism is a family’s creed then the children suffer from having a relativistic moral guide, setting them up for confusion and rebellion. Discipline is a necessity for social and spiritual growth. Where there is little the child will hound the world to find it, even if it leads to an extreme conversion. This is a formula for creating terrorists. While the communists of the 1940s raised children that sought the destruction of capitalism – Weather Underground, Red Brigade and other violent anarchists – materialist homes have turned out children that reject consumerism who, all the while, participate in and benefit from the very activities they purportedly reject. These are the new jihadis, flexing their muscles in a faux spiritual fight against unstructured, spontaneous consumerism that they equate with western culture, and they believe must be combated by embracing a lifestyle of religious minimalism. In this case, Islam; a creed these neophytes don’t understand nor feel a need to. Strict rules can be paradise to someone who has never really experienced discipline. Personal responsibility is removed other than to follow rules with expectation of a physically endowed reward Thinking they've contacted a friend, a mentor or a father figure through social media, misguided teens and young adults are joining a suicide army believing they have nothing to lose. Wanting nothing more than something to believe in, however hateful the dogma, they become dupes for power-hungry imams.

Women have also been targeted, being enticed to travel to Syria and build the caliphate

Women have also been targeted, being enticed to travel to Syria and build the caliphate. By western feminist standards, the labor they are providing is demeaning, though no women’s organizations have griped about it. Young women are recruited to cook, service fighters sexually through ISIS run brothels, and marry mujahid to produce children to continue jihad. As much as western youth are seeking something with which to identify, young women encounter similar struggles. Women’s roles have become so clouded in western culture that there is an attraction to perform traditional tasks; the functions of child-bearing and housekeeping are a release from the confusing message to modern women where the lines between the sexes has been blurred. The bottom line is that these young people are seeking a defined niche for their lives that have been erased in their native society, and they will even grasp roles of slavery to an unforgiving creed. Walid Phares, an expert on the Middle East, said this about American jihadis on Fox News, September 21, 2014: It is a “generational issue… We need to intercept the next generation... These guys were 12 or 14 yrs. old on 9/11. We need to make sure the next generation is not going to go jihadist.” The promise of excitement draws youth, and the Abousamras of the world create an aura of disembodied spectacle where the running blood is surreal. It’s an appealing image of power that beckons those who see themselves as powerless. As teachers and parents we have failed to instill in our children morals that arise from faith in a good God. They are more familiar with violent, gory media images than they are of our loving God. They think that evil, tangible power is more real than the love that He embodies. The world has twisted faith to be defined as physical expression of lust that feeds hate, precisely what ISIS’ islam stands for. But faith is the fulfillment of the spiritual blessing of hope. It’s the difference between serving Christ, the personification of benevolence, or slavery to allah that exemplifies intolerance.