At first I was pretty skeptical. Reprogramming jihadists through therapy ? Did the Saudi’s really intend to handle radicals as though they were whiny, navel-gazing westerners? “Amir, when your little brother was born, how did that make you feel? Did you worry that your parents didn’t love you anymore? When you smuggled guns through Frankfurt, were you hoping to impress them?” Ridiculous.
But there may be something to this initiative. What the RSS-feed summary called “therapy” seems to be a combination of reasoned theological argument about the real meaning of jihad and application of this immemorial bit of commonsense: Aimless, alienated young men are, at all times and places, the most prone to cause trouble. But they also are, at all times and places, civilized by a wife, kids , a job, and a sense of responsibility to a community. The Saudi government is basically just helping these young men “get their act together.” The new program “addresses the psychological needs and emotional weaknesses that have led many young men to jihad in the first place. It tries to give frustrated and disaffected young men the trappings of stability—a job, a car, possibly a wife.”
Because the participants get a lot of goodies (starting with Snickers galore at the rehabilitation center, and possibly culminating in a wife), some think this is just a typical case of the Saudis’ using “nonviolent means to cajole, to bribe, to buy off the opposition.” If so, it’s probably not sustainable, even for the oil-rich House of Saud.
But I suspect that this is a winning strategy for minimizing all sorts of pathologies in any society, including our own. America doesn’t need government-issue bourgeois identities, though, just support for (which may often mean noninterference with) families and churches, the primary socializing and civilizing institutions, which social conservatives have been defending for years. A certain reputedly pragmatic President-elect would do well to take note.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
