How to Spawn a Terrorist

February 16, 2021

CYA – I am just posting this for discussion purposes only. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are fictional. Just a perspective to think about 😊

This is a story about a farm boy. His name is John. A young man in his early 20’s. He lives in the destitute area of the country where the desert is hot all the time. The sun is relentless and turns the ground into hard cracks of clay. Irrigation is required to help the crops survive. John spends most of his time attending to the irrigation systems and ensuring they are doing their job. He dreams of a better life, but none really exists in his world. His parents were killed in a disastrous accident when he was a little boy. He has no recollection of the accident and any memories of the incident were provided by his uncle who he now lives with.

John has made a deal with his uncle that he will stay on and help around the farm until his 23rd birthday. That will be next month. John still feels obligated to help until the migrant works can be shipped in. Due to border closures, that will not be for at least 6 months. He feels trapped. If he wants, his future is pretty much set to take over the farm, but he as the urge to do something better. What is this better life… he is not sure yet, but he needs to explore his options. Today, John and his buddy Mike wan­der into the wrong part of the near by small town looking for a drink. After a few too many beers they wander outside to find their pickup. It was parked somewhere on the street, but they don’t remember where they put it. The sun is setting, and night is beginning to take hold. As they walk along trying to find the truck they look across. On the other side of the street there are four tattooed grunts. They are definitely from the local gang. John wants nothing to do with them. They notice John and Mike and wander over. John just wants to go home, but the gang has other thoughts. Just as they are about to be assaulted John and Mike are saved from the at­tack­ by the neigh­bour­hood kook.

John and Mike are grateful and want to repay the old man by buying him a drink at the bar. He agrees and the crazy old fella takes the op­por­tu­nity to fill the im­pres­sion­able young man’s head with all sorts of crazy ideas, in­clud­ing a pile of quasi-re­li­gious mumbo jumbo about a now-de­funct cult the old guy was part of. He explains that Johns father was part of the “cult” and they were once friends. The old man and John’s dad fought in the long civil war which still rages around them. John is intrigued by the old man and wants to hear more about his father. In short or­der, the young man is con­vinced to join a band of in­sur­gents in­tent on civil war and over­throw­ing the gov­ern­ment. He goes on to kill thou­sands in a suc­cess­ful at­tack on a gov­ern­ment mil­i­tary base.

You see, John didn’t become a terrorist overnight, but he did exhibit signs that would make him a prime candidate for terrorist recruiters. The process of radicalization, as described by Anthony Stahelski in the Journal of Homeland Security, notes terrorists tend to:

• Come from families where the father is absent (check)

• Have difficulty forming relationships outside the home (check)

• Be attracted to groups offering acceptance and comradeship (checkmate)

John is just the kind of isolated disaffected young man that terror recruiters seek out.

Wait – who is this John – could it be Luke Sky­walker (Star Wars) – the terrorist?

“When view­ers first meet Luke, he’s an im­ma­ture ado­les­cent mak­ing a de­cent liv­ing work­ing on his fam­ily’s farm and spend­ing his free time shoot­ing womp rats in Beg­gar’s Canyon with his best pal Biggs.

He aban­dons this dull but peace­ful life in favour of us­ing ex­treme vi­o­lence to bring free­dom to a galaxy he knows noth­ing about be­yond his up­bring­ing on an iso­lated desert planet. He can’t wait to over­throw an em­pire that, while non-demo­cratic and au­thor­i­tar­ian, has brought a sem­blance of peace and or­der to most peo­ple, him­self in­cluded.

He’s tempted to join the re­bel­lion but his fam­ily re­spon­si­bil­ity ini­tially stops him (“I’ve got to get home… I can’t get in­volved… I’ve got work to do… there’s noth­ing I can do right now… it’s all such a long way from here.”). Only when he dis­cov­ers Im­pe­rial storm troop­ers have mur­dered his aunt and un­cle in the search for the miss­ing droids does a griev­ing Luke side with old Ben Kenobi and join the re­bel­lion.”

Seen from this per­spec­tive, Sky­walker is lit­tle more than an ig­no­rant farm kid whose grief and de­sire for re­venge are rad­i­cal­ized to serve an in­sur­gency. The Force is pre­sented to him as a moral and spir­i­tual jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for his ac­tions, po­si­tion­ing his en­e­mies as cruel, in­hu­man soldiers un­der the spell of the dark side. If they won’t change will­ingly, they must die, ca­su­al­ties in a right­eous and nec­es­sary war.

Does that make him any dif­fer­ent from an ISIS re­cruit in Syria or Ye­men?

A more focused study, however, is needed to truly understand that the Star Wars films are actually the story of the radicalization of Luke Skywalker. From introducing him as a simple farm boy gazing into the Tatooine sunset, to his eventual transformation into the radicalized insurgent and his descent into terrorism. We can witness Luke’s dark journey into religious fundamentalism and extremism happen before our very eyes.

But Sky­walker isn’t a terrorist and a mass mur­derer, of course. He is a free­dom fighter, a loyal friend and, we even­tu­ally learn, a de­voted son will­ing to die in an ef­fort to save his fa­ther’s soul. And that mil­i­tary base he de­stroys is the Death Star, an in­ter­stel­lar weapon that had al­ready been used to com­mit geno­cide, wip­ing out an en­tire planet and its in­hab­i­tants.

But it all de­pends on per­spec­tive, doesn’t it?

Ap­plied to re­cent events much closer to home, the same per­spec­tive sheds light on the surge in ex­trem­ist thought and be­hav­iour. Yel­low Vest pro­test­ers see them­selves as to­day’s Luke Sky­walk­ers, awak­ened to the clear and present dan­ger of Justin Trudeau sell­ing out Canada to Que­bec, to im­mi­grants and to a new world or­der.

Qanon fol­low­ers see them­selves as real-life Princess Leias and Han So­los, bat­tling ur­ban, in­tel­lec­tual elites en­slav­ing chil­dren for sex, con­trol­ling ev­ery as­pect of mod­ern life and sell­ing out Amer­ica to the Jews, the Mex­i­cans and Ge­orge Soros.

Call­ing th­ese peo­ple racists and con­spir­acy the­ory quacks doesn’t shame them. It em­pow­ers them. When Darth Vader and the Em­peror mock him for re­fus­ing to ac­cept his des­tiny and em­brace the power of the dark side, he is not ashamed. He is em­pow­ered. In the same way that Star Wars is far more about the per­sonal strug­gles of its he­roes (and the re­demp­tion of its cen­tral vil­lain) than it is about a civil war, the Yel­low Vesters and Qanon fol­low­ers also see their strug­gle against the many per­ceived evils of mod­ern so­ci­ety as deeply per­sonal.

On one hand, it seems triv­ial to ap­ply the themes and char­ac­ter­i­za­tions of Star Wars to com­plex and very real so­cial forces. Yet it also shows how eas­ily in­di­vid­u­als can in­sert them­selves into the mid­dle of a com­pelling and heroic nar­ra­tive to give their lives mean­ing and pur­pose.ISIS fight­ers are will­ing to fight and die for their cause, as are Luke and his friends.

Hope­fully the Yel­low Vest bri­gade, Qanon fol­low­ers and other peo­ple with fringe be­liefs stick to peace­fully shar­ing their griev­ances at road­side protests.

Last month’s deadly siege at the U.S. Capi­tol, how­ever, shows there are now some will­ing to take their bat­tle to the next level, while en­snar­ing oth­ers in their bo­gus con­spir­a­cies and lies.

Its all about perspective. Stuff to think about……………..

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Excerpts of this post were taken from “The Star Wars free­dom dilemma” - The Daily Courier, Canada Feb 10, 2021 by Neil God­bout is man­ag­ing ed­i­tor of the Prince Ge­orge Cit­i­zen.

Also the website:

https://decider.com/2015/12/11/the-radicalization-of-luke-skywalker-a-jedis-path-to-jihad/

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That’s it for now. Let’s hear what you have to say.

Ronco 😊