After what seemed like eternity, the two brothers alleged to have planted the bombs that killed three people and injured more than 180 others at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday have been apprehended. The older of the two, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, reportedly died in a shoot-out on Friday morning, while the younger, Dzhokhar, 19, was arrested in the evening after a manhunt that shut down the Watertown section of the city. Though the two brothers hailed from Dagestan, a Russian republic that shares borders and, to some extent, religious ideology and militancy with Chechnya, they had migrated to the United States more than 10 years ago and lived there legally. This fact was probably responsible for why President Barack Obama said the government would be seeking answers to a lot of questions concerning the background of the two brothers and why they suddenly took to militancy. The US will get all the answers it wants if the severely injured Dzhokhar survives.
Though Anzor Tsarnaev, father of the two brothers, believed his sons were framed, there is no doubt that for him and his wider family this is both a family and generational tragedy. In fact, their home country and fellow Dagestanis are already primed to disown the bombers. When it first appeared that the Boston bombers were linked to Chechnya, that country’s President was quick to disclaim the fact. He suggested that American investigators should look into the Tsarnaev brothers’ upbringing in the US for explanations on their radicalism. Said the Chechnya President, Ramzan Kadyrov: “Any attempts to draw the link between Tsarnaevs (even if they are guilty) and Chechnya are in vain. They grew up in USA and their views and beliefs were formed there. One needs to seek the roots of evil in America. All the world should be fighting terrorism together. We know it better than anyone else. We wish all those who suffered to get well soon and we share the feeling of sorrow with Americans.”
But if Dagestan and Chechnya could promptly disown the Tsarnaev brothers, their anguished family would not find it easy to do same. Not only have the brothers brought the family name to national and international opprobrium, the scale of the brutal assault in Boston is bound to make many seek explanations for the two brothers’ radicalisation both in their family and in the US as a whole. In addition, the impact of the bombings and the many lives they have wrecked, not to talk of the novelty of the attacks, are certain to keep the unfortunate incident in public memory for a long time. Nigeria and the Abdulmutallab family face the same humiliation every time there is a mention of the Christmas Day bomber.
It will be recalled that under the influence of Yemeni members of al-Qaeda terror group, a 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, with plastic explosives strapped to his underwear, attempted to blow up an American aeroplane over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.
Shortly after, on January 10, 2010, this column attempted an explanation of the Abdulmutallab problem. The analysis raised a number of issues that are today even more pertinent as the world ponders the tragedy that has just befallen the Tsarnaev family. An excerpt of that piece is reproduced below, and though it was published before the northern part of Nigeria exploded in violence, it anticipated Boko Haram militancy. If only the North had listened.
AbdulMutallab meets Gavrilo Princip,
January 10, 2010
“…Notwithstanding our defiant posture and wounded pride, the fact is that we have been foolish and hypocritical in our approach to urgent national issues such as religion, culture, ethnicity and politics. Unfortunately, all these issues have impacted negatively on the country to the point of producing monstrosities like Farouk. Terrorism is not exclusive to any religion, just as there is no single cause of terrorism. But in the case of Farouk we must go beyond the fact of his schooling in Togo, London, Dubai and Yemen to find out what predisposed him to acute explosion of rage and violence. There are many like him who schooled abroad even at a tender age and who shunned hateful ideologies. American psychologists may be able to piece together the jigsaw and come out with answers to what went wrong with the young bomber…
“When he was 19 years old, Farouk had expressed the frightening and myopic opinion that he fantasised the waging of another major Jihad in which Islam would achieve victory and establish a world empire. It never occurred to him that even if that happened, that victory could not be sustained for all time. But with such foundational belief that forceful proselytisation was permissible, which sadly many clerics in Nigeria hold to be true, it was a matter of time before he became a tool in the hands of demagogues. It is a fact of our recent history that many violent proselytisers, many of them quite ignorant of Islam, and some of them hiding behind politics attempt to create an immiscible broth of religion and politics. Conventional explanations that suggest fanaticism and violence result from poverty must be examined again in the light of Farouk’s wealthy background so that the North can begin to rebuild confidence and establish an atmosphere where peace and harmony reign.
“Given our past experiences the wise political option should have been for Nigeria to move in the direction of robust secularism in which the state would hands off religion. This has not happened partly because many states cannot seem to make up their minds over the instinctive theocracy of their fantasy, as Farouk indicated, and the stability and realism that secularism offers in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. Except we deceive ourselves, Middle East is in turmoil because countries in the region are locked in a battle between secularism and theocracy, and between contending factions of theocratic sects. Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, among others should serve as examples of the dangers an increasingly vulnerable Nigeria faces. We must not assume that these problems will vanish automatically.
“Disturbing as the backlash against Nigerians abroad is, the answer is not in the hysteria that has gripped the country, nor in the clumsy attempt to distance ourselves from our young compatriot. Whether we like it or not, Farouk is our son, and though by his education he is a citizen of the world, he is still our son. His family values might have failed to tether him to reality, but we must not ignore the fact that those values served his other 13 siblings well. Most families often have one black sheep anyway. It is the poor luck and personal tragedy of the urbane senior Mutallab that his errant son chose the world stage to display his waywardness. We must also not ignore the fact that the unhealthy mix of politics and religion in the North has engendered more religious violence in that region than anywhere else. And we must not downplay the danger of disintegration which our refusal to do something urgent and drastic about the unhealthy mixture could precipitate.
“We may not have all the answers regarding the transformation of Farouk from a gentle and pious boy into a suicidal and venomously spiteful man, nor it seems does he himself. But we must begin the search. The magnitude of his fantasy and the sheer scale of his ignorance should tell us something about ourselves, our family values, our politics and the long years of pussyfooting over religion…”
Anzor Tsarnaev, father of the two Boston bombers, said his children were framed, pointing out in particular that his younger son “is a true angel.” According to him, “Dzhokhar is a second-year medical student in the US. He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here.” That may be the much he knew about his sons. The question parents must ask themselves is how much they know their children, or whether in fact they know them at all, given the penchant of the young ones to always spring a surprise. This column also examined this treatise on April 1, 2012 when it responded in this place to the deplorable tweets written by Liam Stacey to the huge consternation of his distraught mother. Hereunder is an excerpt of that column to help instigate a fresh appreciation of the subject in the light of the incredulity and grief of the Boston bombers’ father.
Liam Stacey’s racist tweets and the dilemma of parenting, April 1, 2012
“…Recall also that I once wrote about the Abdulmutallabs here. Except you are a parent, you may never fully appreciate that family’s sadness and horror as their son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to bomb an airline over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009. The tragedy of realising that they had raised a son who embraced terrorism was bad enough in a worrisome way, for the eyes of the whole world, and the even more censorious and withering look of their countrymen was truly damning. But much worse is the continuing tragedy of watching helplessly as that son stays in the limelight for the wrong reasons, tormented by the destructive finality of long years in prison, his life completely wasted, as are the hopes and investments of the family on him. It is impossible not to feel the family’s pain.
“Imagine, therefore, what horror befell the British family of the Staceys last week, as their son, Liam, hugged the Twitter limelight for the wrong reason, trolling the tweeting public with deeply nauseating racist remarks on Fabrice Muamba, the Bolton footballer who collapsed on pitch during a soccer match with Spurs. Liam, a Swansea University biology student, explained in court that he trolled under the influence of alcohol, but he did not quite convince anyone his racist tweets did not reflect what he harboured secretly in his heart. As he was being tried and sentenced to 56 days in jail, reports indicated his mother wept bitterly, ashamed of the negative publicity her otherwise mild-mannered son had attracted to himself, and the fact that he had achieved notoriety that would haunt his present and future, truncate his education and career, and ostracise him in civilised communities everywhere for a long time.
“No family is so strong and so cohesive as to be immune to the consequences of the obnoxious behaviour of its member. Increasingly, as the Twitter generation is showing, younger people are coming under the inordinate strains of modernity. Such strains sometimes manifest in the digital and communications revolution, in music, particularly rap and hip-hop, and in many other modern trends such as the shifting concepts of family, parenting, urbanisation, and the ideology of culture, economy (business) and politics. The problem is of such magnitude that families now depend on miracles and happenstances to keep themselves together and establish some semblance of order and harmony…
“But the greatest challenge facing parents is not how to obviate the stupidities of their children, but how to raise children whose view of society is balanced, children who are neither misanthropic, like petty criminals, sadists and serial murderers, nor moral monsters who grow up unable to differentiate between the healthy predilections of a political and religious ideologue and the antinomian excesses of terrorists and extremists who espouse ethnic or racial genocide…
“The challenge of any parent is to develop a continuum of coherent and relevant worldviews anchored on the key elements of lofty principles, great character and unimpeachable morality. That template of ethical continuums must, however, be such that members of the family, particularly the children, can express and fulfil their individualisms in ways that do not threaten the family or the society. It is never easy, especially because generational shifts and conflicts often periodically impose new and sometimes taxing realities upon families. But the danger of not establishing a family paradigm upon which children could anchor their lives and ideas is to create a vacuum in which all manner of ideas and cultures would thrive, many of them anti-social, and others inimical to the image of the family and the wider society.
“To prevent the sort of tragedies Liam Stacey and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab brought upon their families, the first priority for any family is to set a tough code of ethics for themselves. Top on the list of that code, of course, is character, that most difficult and yet most beautiful of all virtues that inculcates a sound philosophy regarding the sanctity of human life, courage in the face of adversity, intelligent appreciation of issues, and a sound knowledge of one’s purpose in life. If a parent does not set this code for his children, and does not do it in such a way as to make the code adaptable to the present and the future, strangers, perhaps with malicious intent, will do it for them. After all, it is the sum of positive family values that determines how stable and prosperous a society becomes…”
In the next few days or weeks, we may get a better insight into what radicalised the Tsarnaev brothers and motivated them into becoming mass murderers. Does it have to do with their conversion to Islam? If so what kind of preaching were they listening to, and who were influencing them? Or does it have anything to do with Dagestan’s campaign for independence or the sufferings of Chechnya? Whatever the reasons, the Boston bombings place greater urgency on the need for more realistic, adequate and intelligent parenting.