John Walker - The Strange Odyssey Subscribe   
  From:  David (DavidABrown)    12/24/2001 2:44 pm  
To:  ALL   (1 of 2)  
 
  292.1  
 
Hi,

 

This is a Link to a very Interesting and Informative (4 min) Audio commentary about the American John Walker and his decision to join the Muslim Religion.

 

Link: John Walker - The Strange Odyssey

 

God Bless You!

David



David A. Brown
Basic Christian: Forum
 
  
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   From:  David (DavidABrown)    1/2/2002 12:57 pm  
To:  ALL   (2 of 2)  
 
  292.2 in reply to 292.1  
 
THE ROAD TO TREASON  
   
>THE ROAD TO TREASON By Jeff Jacoby
>The Boston Globe December 13, 2001
>
>It isn't the case that the parents of John Walker -- the Marin County child
>of
>privilege turned Taliban terrorist -- never drew the line with their son.
>True, they didn't do so when he was 14 and his consuming passion was
>collecting hip-hop CDs with especially nasty lyrics.
>
>And true, they didn't put their foot down when he announced at 16 that he
>was going to drop out of Tamiscal High School -- the elite "alternative"
>school where students determined their own course of study and only saw a
>teacher once a week.
>
>And granted, they didn't interfere when he abruptly decided to become a
>Muslim after reading *The Autobiography of Malcolm X,* grew a beard, and
>took to wearing long white robes and an oversized skullcap.
>
>On the contrary: His father was "proud of John for pursuing an alternative
>course" and his mother told friends that it was "good for a child to find a
>passion."
>
>Nor did they object when he began spending more and more time at a local
>mosque and set about trying to memorize the Koran.
>
>Nor when he asked his parents to pay his way to Yemen so he could learn to
>speak "pure" Arabic.
>
>Nor when they learned that his new circle of friends included gunmen who 
>had been to Chechnya to fight the Russians.
>
>Nor when he headed to Pakistan to join a madrassah in a region known to be 
>a stronghold of Islamist extremists.
>
>His parents also didn't balk when he went to fight in Afghanistan -- but
>that, at least, they didn't know about: Walker hadn't told them.
>Perhaps by that point he had learned to take their consent for granted.
>
>Only once, it seems, did Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker actually deny their
>son something he wanted.  When he first adopted Islam and took the name
>Suleyman, they refused to use it and insisted on calling him John.  After all, 
>he had been named for one of the giants of our time: John Lennon.
>
>Their refusal must have amazed him.  For as long as he could remember, his
>oh-so-progressive parents had answered "Yes" to his every whim, indulged 
>his every fancy, permitted -- even praised -- his every passion.  The only 
>thing they insisted on was that nothing be insisted on.  Nothing in his life was
>important enough for them to make an issue of: not his schooling, not his
>religion, not his appearance, not even whether he stayed in America or 
>moved -- while still a minor -- to a benighted Third World oligarchy halfway
>around the world.  Nothing.  Except, of course, their right to call him by
>the name of their favorite Beatle.
>
>Devout practitioners of the self-obsessed nonjudgmentalism for which the 
>Bay Area is renowned, Lindh and Walker appear never to have rebuked their son 
>or criticized his choices.  In their world, there were no absolutes, no fixed
>truths, no mandatory behavior, no thou-shalt-nots.  If they had one
>conviction, it was that all convictions are worthy -- that nothing is
>intolerable except intolerance.
>
>But even in Marin County, there are times when children need to hear "No"
>and "Don't."  They need to know that there are limits they must respect and
>expectations they must try to live up to.  If they cannot find those limits
>and expectations at home, they are apt to look for them elsewhere.
>Newsweek calls it "truly perplexing" that Walker, who "grew up in possibly
>the most liberal, tolerant place in America .  .  .  was drawn to the most
>illiberal, intolerant sect in Islam."
>
>There is nothing perplexing about it.  He craved standards and discipline.
>Mom and Dad didn't offer any.  The Taliban did.
>
>Even when it was clear that their son was sinking into Islamist fanaticism,
>they wouldn't pull back on the reins.  When Osama bin Laden's terrorists
>bombed the USS Cole and killed 17 American servicemen, Walker e-mailed his
>father that the attack had been justified, since by docking the ship in
>Yemen, the United States had committed "an act of war."  Lindh now says 
>that the message "raised my concerns" -- but that didn't stop him from wiring
>Walker another $1,200.  After all, says Dad, "my days of molding him were
>over."  It isn't clear that they ever began.
>
>It undoubtedly came as a jolt to his parents when Walker turned up at the
>fortress near Mazar-i-Sharif, sporting an AK-47 and calling himself Abdul
>Hamid.  But the revelation that their son had enlisted in Al Qaeda and
>supported the Sept.  11 attacks brought no words of reproach -- or
>self-reproach -- to their lips.
>
>Walker deserved "a little kick in the butt" for keeping them in the dark
>about his plans, his father said, but otherwise they just wanted to "give
>him a big hug."  His mother, meanwhile, was quite sure that "if he got
>involved with the Taliban he must have been brainwashed.  .  .when you're
>young and impressionable, it's easy to be led by charismatic people."
>
>Yes, it is, and it's a pity that that didn't occur to her sooner.  If she
>and Lindh had been less concerned with flaunting their open-mindedness and
>more concerned with developing their son's moral judgment, he wouldn't be
>where he is today.  Walker is responsible for his own behavior and he will
>pay the price the law requires.  But his road to treason and jihad didn't
>begin in Afghanistan.  It began in Marin County, with parents who never 
>said "No."


David A. Brown
Basic Christian: Forum
 
  
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