I've been sitting around most of today, reading the news online and watching it on MSNBC. I had no agenda when I started this morning, there was nothing in particular I wanted to write about. Rather, I was debating about whether to watch the World Cup game between the U.S. and Belgium. I am a former Rugby player (11 years) and after you've played a game like Rugby for that long, Football (aka Soccer) just seems boring.
Mind you, I'm not telling anyone else not to watch. Soccer is a perfectly fine sport that is entirely consistent with American values and Ann Coulter was completely wrong to criticize those who like the game. It's just that once you've become accustomed to a certain level of violent action in a game, a less action-packed game is less interesting.
We become what we become accustomed to--nurture is a very real thing.
As I sat around trying to decide whether to watch today's big game, I was also watching The Reid Report on MSNBC and one of her segments was about how much more popular this Mens' World Cup has been this year. For the sake of brevity I will zero in on what I thought was the single most important factor: youth soccer has become far and away the most popular youth sports movement in the United States.
US Youth Soccer is non-profit and educational organization whose mission is to foster the physical, mental and emotional growth and development of America's youth through the sport of soccer at all levels of age and competition. Our job is also to make it fun, and instill in young players a lifelong passion for the sport.
From its humble beginnings in 1974 with just more than 100,000 registered players to its current registration of more than 3 million, US Youth Soccer has always been recognized as a leader in youth sports organizations. Through a democratic structure, the membership of US Youth Soccer is able to provide uniform rules and guidelines. These guidelines facilitate intra-state, inter-state and international play.
Think about that for a moment: at any given moment 1% of the U.S. population is playing youth soccer, and that population is constantly turning over and recycling. That process has created a significant population who understand the rules of Soccer and can watch and appreciate the game when it is played by superior players.
As an aside, I think this is one reason why watching Rugby is much less popular: a lack of a significant little league teaching Rugby's laws (yes, Rugby has laws, not rules, and as it happens, the same is true of Soccer, which I did not know until I just looked it up). To the uninitiated, Rugby can look a little like hand-to-hand combat. U.S. parents have shown themselves to be more willing to accept the physical risks of Soccer, instead of say, American Football. In many U.S. jurisdictions, making children play Rugby could be construed as child abuse.
A process of a certain kind of nurture--participation little league Soccer--has finally reached a critical mass of twenty- and thirty somethings--male and female--who understand the laws of Soccer, enjoy watching good teams play, and are old enough to walk into a bar and buy drinks while watching. Thus, an entertainment segment is born with millions of young Americans excited about watching today's World Cup matchup between the United States and Belgium. It made perfect sense to me.
It also jostled back into my mind a story I had heard earlier this morning. Apparently ISIS, or the new "Islamic State" or "Caliphate," as they are currently styling themselves, are themselves something of a youth movement. From the New York Times:
Al Qaeda’s central leadership has been waning in power and influence for years. American drone strikes have limited the ability of its leaders to manage their far-flung affiliates, and Mr. Zawahri, who took over after the death of Bin Laden, is widely seen as out of touch and lacking the charisma to inspire young militants.
This younger generation has been wooed through ISIS’ social media campaigns and finds its activist approach to statehood more inspiring than Al Qaeda’s long-term vision.
“Al Qaeda is an organization and we are a state,” said an ISIS fighter who gave his name as Abu Omar in an online chat. “Osama bin Laden, God have mercy on him, was fighting to establish the Islamic state to rule the world, and — praise God — we have achieved his dream.”
As I pondered American Soccer and the "Islamic State," I thought about the different forces needed to provide the necessary "nurture" to create these two very different youth movements.
In the case of American Soccer fandom, I think the answer is obvious: four decades of little league soccer teaching the game to future fans.
Now let's ask ourselves, if the members of the "Islamic State" are mostly within the age brackets of 18 and 36 years of age, what do we know about their experience growing up, their "nurturance"?
If you are at the upper end of this age bracket, your early childhood was spent during the Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988, an extremely bloody conflict that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides and involved widespread use of chemical weapons.
After the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq was at peace for about three years when Saddam Hussein rashly decided to invade Kuwait, touching off the First Gulf War (1990-1991). The First Gulf War was a crushing defeat for Iraq--doubly so because Hussein was allowed to continue his dictatorship and draconian sanctions were imposed on Iraq.
Many of the younger twenty-somethings and teens involved in the "Islamic State" were born during this period of sanctions and grew up with their consequences: malnutrition, poverty, declining education, and many others.
This period was followed by the invasion of Iraq by the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney under false pretenses, the dismantlement of Iraqi civil society by Paul Bremer, and years of occupation and insurgency ending with U.S. withdrawal in 2011.
If you are a 34-year old Iraqi man, born in 1980, you have known precisely three years of life free from war, sanctions, famine, occupation, insurgency, or civil war. And those three "normal" years were the three years of peace after the end of the Iran-Iraq War while your country was under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. That's your life, from infancy, through childhood and adolescence, and into adulthood--that was the "nurturance" you received.
Is it any wonder that this youth movement, this "Islamic State," has a complete and utter disregard for human life? What kind of monster have we midwifed and let loose upon the Middle-East?
I'm not suggesting that we should, or even can, give way before this new threat. On the other hand, I'm not sure what we can do. It appears that we have doomed the Middle-East to a prolonged period of civil war, proxy war, and international war.
On the bright side, if you are an American man born in 1980, there's a pretty good chance that you have learned to appreciate Soccer, or Association Football (or Fútbol).
And maybe that's a kind of progress. In any event, I decided to watch the game; anything Ann Coulter hates can't be all bad.