Brainwashing Turning Destinies into Tragedies

by Khalee Rhine

10 November 2014

 

Most children through their childhood all the way to their time of adolescence spend their years thinking about their future careers, families, and aspirations in life. From a young age, many of us are taught to dream and dream big—because anything is possible and we possess the potential to be whatever we set our minds to. Sadly, this is not the case for many young boys in the Middle East: more specifically, those from the country of Kosovo.

 

For those who do not already know, many residents in Kosovo for a long time have identified as Muslim through their cultural beliefs, but they never studied with dedicated devotion regarding Islamic ideology. Occasionally, there would be a radical Muslim who would spring up but these devout believers would be few and far between. 

 

However, lately there has been an uprising in numbers of radical extremists. For example, boys are being raised from a very young age to do whatever they must do for their religion. These events are epitomized by the story of eight year old Erion Abazi. Basically kidnapped from his home by his own father, he was taken across the Syrian border and reportedly left with an Albanian-speaking family while his father was away at training camp. Erion's mother was able to speak to him once on the phone for a short while, asking him where he was and if he was okay. For a long time afterwards, his family would only see updates about him through social media. They noted that he'd be sticking one finger up in his pictures, a sign used in the Islamic State (IS). 

 

After a while, Erion's family was able to get in touch with him through the web-application Skype. His mother, Pranvera Abazi, was relieved to hear the voice of her son and see his face. However, his Pranvera noted that the young boy had changed. His mother's cousin, Suad Sadullahi, saw the change as well. "We thought he was more grown-up - maybe because he's had his head shaved. To me, he was speaking more like a man - and he's only eight years old," says Suad. 

 

The family has fears of what will become of young Erion, especially since many more of these "horror stories" have been appearing out of Kosovo. For instance, a twenty-four year old by the name of Blerim Heta began to show signs of being radicalized by beginning to attend hearings in mosques frequently and growing out his facial hair, while also wearing his bottoms in a shorter fashion as many Muslim wore them in the Middle East. Very soon, he ended up in Syria as well. 

 

On 24 March 2014, Blerim notified his family that he was going to "meet Allah" soon. In indisputable shock, his sister begged him to come home through her tears and shouts. His sister testified: "When he was in Kosovo, Blerim said that suicide bombers, they're not Muslims. But when I talked to him in Syria, and I asked him, 'Is it good to kill people?' He said, 'If they're not Muslim, yes.'" The next day (25 March 2014), he was responsible for the deaths of 52 Iraqis in a suicide bombing.

 

Many of the families being affected by this tragedy afflicting the men in their families believe that the males had been brainwashed while attending sermons held by imams who would preach about the Islamic religion and regularly visiting mosques. Instead of letting our armies waste their energy fighting a violent war and letting the death tolls of both sides multiply daily, shouldn't we be attacking at the root of the problem? The war is not with the physical beings, but with the conspicuous corruption of their religious system’s teachings.