Newsweek recently published an article Fifty Books for Our Times.  Always looking to find something interesting to read, I decided to pick out a few of them.  I just finished The Looming Tower, #2 on the list (though I don’t know that the list has an particular order).  It answers the questions, How did 9/11 happen and why?  Great read.  It’s historical, but written so well that it feels like you’re reading a novel.

One of the questions I had going into the book was this:  What kind of people buy into a religious worldview that is so extreme?  Are these people who grew up in particular religious environments?  Did they come to believe such things through intellectural or spiritual pursuit?

In his Pulitzer Prize winning book Wright, weaves a bit of this into his historical narrative.  Many Al-Qaeda recruits had something one thing in common.  Displacement.  He writes, “Most who joined the jihad did so in a country other than the one in which they were reared…Despite their accomplisments, they had little standing in the host societies where they lived.”  They were Algerians in France, Moroccans in Spain, Yemenis in Saudi Arabia, Pakistani in London.  Disconnected.  No attachment.  No community.  No sense of belonging.  So, many of them turned to a religion (Islam) that provided attachment and commonality and belonging.  Wright writes, “It was more than a faith — it was an identity.”  Now, I don’t want to suggest that this would have been the only reason they became connected to an extremist faction of Islam.  It is probably more complicated than that.  But I think there is something to be said about this displacement and disconnectedness.

As someone who works with immigrants and refugees here in the US and orphans in Russia, Ukraine, and Uganda, I was particularly struck by this.  I mean, it’s not a surprise.  It makes a lot of sense.  We hear about it all the time.  A young man joins a gang, where he robs and steals, only later to tell about how he did it because he found a sense of belonging. Though taken to a different level,  it’s the story of middle and high school.  We’ve all done it ourselves.  You do certain things with certain people because it gives you an identity, it helps you to belong.  What struck me was how difference can result in disconnectedness, which can lead one to destructive behavior for themselves or others.

When you don’t share the language, don’t share the culture, and don’t share the identity of those around you, maybe it is easier to latch on to any person or group that welcomes you.  Of the many reasons to be welcoming and compassionate, this is yet another reason why reaching out to those who are different than us.  Not simply because “they might become terrorists” but because it is the right thing to do.  Because when people feel isolated and alone and disconnected, they experience pain, hurt, and loneliness.  Because isolated people are at risk to engage in risky and destructive behaviors.

I hear about this all the time in my work with orphans overseas.  And these children share the culture and language.  But because they can be seen as the trash of society, they are isolated, despised, and pushed aside.  So they turn to drugs and alcohol, prostitution and crime.  They begin to have a distorted view of themselves, seeing themselves as not worth anything.  Their own lives and the lives of others are destroyed because they don’t belong.

Because we live in a culture that values personal responsibility and accomplishments, displaced people are often viewed as people who have brought it upon themselves or who simply aren’t trying hard enough.  I don’t want to take personal responsibility out of the picture, but when people are displaced and isolated — and when we know that we do certain things because of belonging and community — we have to wonder how we contribute to the isolation of others, particularly those who are different than us.  I’m not saying that we are all responsible for every disconnected, isolated, displaced person.  But I do believe that these people cross our paths more often than we think.  And when we don’t extend welcome to those we can, then yes, we are responsible.