Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East by Jared Cohen

Author:Jared Cohen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Jared - Travel - Middle East, Sociology, Social Science, Youth - Political Activity, Political Advocacy, TRAVEL, Political Process, Middle East - Description and Travel, Islamic Studies, General, Youth, Religion, Jihad, Middle East, Political Science, Cohen, Muslim Youth, Children's Studies, Political Activity, Islam
ISBN: 9781592403998
Publisher: Gotham
Published: 2007-01-01T23:00:00+00:00

That day at McDonald’s when I first told Hezbollah I was Jewish, I admit I was frightened. But I was surprised by an interesting paradox. On the one hand they were religious extremists, committed to the establishment of an Islamic republic, the destruction of Israel, and attacks on America. On the other hand, they were typical Lebanese youth: clubbers, barhoppers, and lovers of American fast food.

During the day, I heard extremist arguments and ominous rhetoric. They wanted to see Israel destroyed, they embraced suicide bombing, and they made no apologies for the long list of terrorist attacks undertaken in the name of Hezbollah. I expected that they went home at night and read extremist teachings and held radical conclaves. Hardly.

I would sometimes see these same young men out at the Beirut hot spots; sometimes they would acknowledge me, while at other times, upset at having their double life revealed, they would avoid me or pretend we had never met. These clubs were hardly religious centers or conservative in their atmosphere. The dance floors in most Beirut nightclubs are very small, catering instead to those who can afford tables and bottle service. The Hezbollah guys I would spot out at night usually crammed themselves into the overpacked dance floors, hardly cringing at the idea of having to pass through crowds of women on their way to the bar. These same Hezbollah partygoers ogled, rather than scowled at, the half-dressed women who danced on top of the bars showing off their latest fashions. Like most Lebanese youth, Hezbollah youth wanted to keep their daytime activities separated from their evening activities, and this meant that they didn’t want people in the nightclubs to recognize them as Hezbollah. I never saw them out at hot spots in the predominantly Muslim West Beirut. I would only see them out in areas heavily populated with Maronite or Sunni party animals.

When I told Lebanese friends of mine that I had seen some of these youths out at the clubs, their responses reflected doubt. They rebutted that these are very religious individuals who do not drink and who do not do anything modern. Others would suggest that these guys couldn’t have been Hezbollah, because true members of this organization would never let you know who they were. But what my friends didn’t seem to understand was that these Hezbollah guys weren’t there to plot a bombing of a Christian nightclub, or to kidnap Westerners; they were there to party, dance, and even in some cases drink. Like everyone else—including other young firebrands from Amal—they were there to be Lebanese. It is hardly a secret that like Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah is also suspected of having sleeper cells in America. With 9/11 just four years in the past, the visual of what I saw in Beirut made me fearful that those thugs were in America “being” Americans at the same nightclubs that I frequent. This puzzling paradox highlighted the conflict extremist youth face between indoctrination and being a teenager.

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