Young Muslim Men: Losing a Generation to Senseless Extremist Violence
I don't know if anyone remembers the lyrics of protest songs from the '60s. There is at least one that has poignant meaning for the travesty that is happening in the Middle East and Asia today in Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the like. These counties are facing a truly serious issue in that a whole generation of men and male youth in the prime of their lives are being lost, killed by extremism or goaded into killing their brothers by thoughtless, soulless male Islamic extremists whose only thoughts are for their own personal agrandizement as realized by perversion of sacred texts. The song I have in mind is Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone".
For those that don't know it. The song starts out asking "Where have all the flowers gone". Turns out they have all been picked by girls for romance. Then it asks where all the girls have gone and it turns out they have taken husbands. It then asks where all the young men have gone and turns out they have all become soldiers. It then asks where all the soldiers have gone and it turns out they have gone to graveyard, everyone of them. It then asks where all the graveyards have gone and it turns out they have gone to flowers, starting the never ending cycle over again. The refrain is "when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn".
Islamic male youth in the Middle East and Asia, their parents, wives, girlfriends, and children should all head the warning of this song. It drives home the complete uselessness of the needless strife of extremism, war, shooting, killing, maiming, raping, and destroying the very things that are worth living for. Leaders who exhort their male populations to rise up in anger and intolerance need to be exiled and sent to some place where they can fight amongst themselves to the death to prove who is the most holy, the most observant, the most devout, or whatever it is that drives these soulless people to create a never ending world of pain, suffering, death and destruction for their people, their children, and their grandchildren.
Listen to the refrain out there in the wind "When will they ever learn.....when will they ever learn". Muslim peoples of the Middle East and Asia need to look around and realize what they are doing to themselves, to their youth, to the hope of their future......they are willfully destroying it, and for what? For nothing. For the same cycle of violence and intolerance, for the same flower to graveyard cycle over and over and over again. Stop the madness!!!
For those that don't know it. The song starts out asking "Where have all the flowers gone". Turns out they have all been picked by girls for romance. Then it asks where all the girls have gone and it turns out they have taken husbands. It then asks where all the young men have gone and turns out they have all become soldiers. It then asks where all the soldiers have gone and it turns out they have gone to graveyard, everyone of them. It then asks where all the graveyards have gone and it turns out they have gone to flowers, starting the never ending cycle over again. The refrain is "when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn".
Islamic male youth in the Middle East and Asia, their parents, wives, girlfriends, and children should all head the warning of this song. It drives home the complete uselessness of the needless strife of extremism, war, shooting, killing, maiming, raping, and destroying the very things that are worth living for. Leaders who exhort their male populations to rise up in anger and intolerance need to be exiled and sent to some place where they can fight amongst themselves to the death to prove who is the most holy, the most observant, the most devout, or whatever it is that drives these soulless people to create a never ending world of pain, suffering, death and destruction for their people, their children, and their grandchildren.
Listen to the refrain out there in the wind "When will they ever learn.....when will they ever learn". Muslim peoples of the Middle East and Asia need to look around and realize what they are doing to themselves, to their youth, to the hope of their future......they are willfully destroying it, and for what? For nothing. For the same cycle of violence and intolerance, for the same flower to graveyard cycle over and over and over again. Stop the madness!!!
