THE ROAD TO TREASON
By Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
December 13,
2001
It isn't the case that the parents of John Walker -- the Marin
County child of privilege turned Taliban terrorist -- never drew the line with
their son.
True, they didn't do so when he was 14 and his consuming passion
was collecting hip-hop CDs with especially nasty lyrics.
And true, they
didn't put their foot down when he announced at 16 that he was going to drop out
of Tamiscal High School – the elite "alternative" school where students
determined their own course of study and only saw a teacher once a week.
And
granted, they didn't interfere when he abruptly decided to become a Muslim after
reading *The Autobiography of Malcolm X,* grew a beard, and took to wearing long
white robes and an oversized skullcap. On the contrary: His father was "proud of
John for pursuing an alternative course" and his mother told friends that it was
"good for a child to find a passion."
Nor did they object when he began
spending more and more time at a local mosque and set about trying to memorize
the Koran.
Nor when he asked his parents to pay his way to Yemen so he could
learn to speak "pure" Arabic.
Nor when they learned that his new circle of
friends included gunmen who had been to Chechnya to fight the Russians.
Nor
when he headed to Pakistan to join a madrassah in a region known to be a
stronghold of Islamist extremists.
His parents also didn't balk when he went
to fight in Afghanistan -- but that, at least, they didn't know about: Walker
hadn't told them. Perhaps by that point he had learned to take their consent for
granted.
Only once, it seems, did Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker actually
deny their son something he wanted. When he first adopted Islam and took the
name Suleyman, they refused to use it and insisted on calling him John. After
all, he had been named for one of the giants of our time: John Lennon.
Their
refusal must have amazed him. For as long as he could remember, his
oh-so-progressive parents had answered "Yes" to his every whim, indulged his
every fancy, permitted -- even praised --his every passion. The only thing they
insisted on was that nothing be insisted on. Nothing in his life was important
enough for his them to make an issue of: not his schooling, not his religion,
not his appearance, not even whether he stayed in America or moved --while still
a minor -- to a benighted Third World oligarchy halfway around the world.
Nothing. Except, of course, their right to call him by the name of their
favorite Beatle.
Devout practitioners of the self-obsessed nonjudgmentalism
for which the Bay Area is renowned, Lindh and Walker appear never to have
rebuked their son or criticized his choices. In their world, there were no
absolutes, no fixed truths, no mandatory behavior, no thou-shalt-nots. If they
had one conviction, it was that all convictions are worthy -- that nothing is
intolerable except intolerance.
But even in Marin County, there are times
when children need to hear "No" and "Don't." They need to know that there are
limits they must respect and expectations they must try to live up to. If they
cannot find those limits and expectations at home, they are apt to look for them
elsewhere. Newsweek calls it "truly perplexing" that Walker, who "grew up in
possibly the most liberal, tolerant place in America . . . was drawn to the most
illiberal, intolerant sect in Islam." There is nothing perplexing about it. He
craved standards and discipline. Mom and Dad didn't offer any. The Taliban
did.
Even when it was clear that their son was sinking into Islamist
fanaticism, they wouldn't pull back on the reins. When Osama bin Laden's
terrorists bombed the USS Cole and killed 17 American servicemen, Walker
e-mailed his father that the attack had been justified, since by docking the
ship in Yemen, the United States had committed "an act of war." Lindh now says
that the message "raised my concerns" -- but that didn't stop him from wiring
Walker another $1,200. After all, says Dad, "my days of molding him were
over."
It isn't clear that they ever began.
It undoubtedly came as a jolt
to his parents when Walker turned up at the fortress near Mazar-i-Sharif,
sporting an AK-47 and calling himself Abdul Hamid. But the revelation that their
son had enlisted in Al Qaeda and supported the Sept. 11 attacks brought no words
of reproach -- or self-reproach -- to their lips.
Walker deserved "a little
kick in the butt" for keeping them in the dark about his plans, his father said,
but otherwise they just wanted to "give him a big hug." His mother, meanwhile,
was quite sure that "if he got involved with the Taliban he must have been
brainwashed. . . . When you're young and impressionable, it's easy to be led by
charismatic people."
Yes, it is, and it's a pity that that didn't occur to
her sooner. If she and Lindh had been less concerned with flaunting their
open-mindedness and more concerned with developing their son's moral judgment,
he wouldn't be where he is today. Walker is responsible for his own behavior and
he will pay the price the law requires. But his road to treason and jihad didn't
begin in Afghanistan. It began in Marin County, with parents who never said
"No."
Bob Simons
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the
LORD,
"plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give
you hope
and a future. Jer. 29:11
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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