Mothers of Sons

In some strange way, the words Mrs. Tsarnaev..."America took my sons from me" resonates deeply for me even as I live and mother my children here. I may be translating her words incorrectly, but what I hear is a grieving mother who lost her two boys to a culture of promiscuity, greed and violence.

In America we are imbued with gratitude for the great freedoms granted us, yet many people get lost in a whirlwind of PGV living and thinking that all they accumulate in property, money and partners defines who they are. Rarely do the responsibilities that jointly come with such freedom are held in equal balance. When one's moral compass is so defined, reality and a sense of being meaningful in such a world becomes subject to daily winds that buffet personal fortunes for better or worse.

Neither boy was a "loser" as suggested by their uncle who rushed to judgment in front of media microphones, quick to defend the Chechnyan people and perhaps his own family.  Both boys were hungering in search for their moral compass, the younger following his older brother, clearly his mentor.

I see my own children struggling as young adults with the realities of being adults in a world solely defined by Capitalism and scrambling to keep up so they can say "I too Am, I too count for something, I accomplished Something" and setting aside the religious life they born into. Unless one is supported by a community, enclosed and protected as a group in beliefs, being religious is no more than an inconvenience, often an embarrassment or an excuse to do less than those around who have no ties to bind them from living the PGV life.

I marvel at the talking heads asking the same idiotic questions that are politically correct, not wanting to besmirch Islam or Muslims in any wholesale manner. At the same time Muslims en masse remain quiet, either in silent acquiescence with the actions taken by the brothers or in fear of whatever position they take. If Muslim culture remains as it is in this modern world, a force advocating the rise of the Caliphate, destroying the infidels defined as most everyone not of their particular sect of Islam, then Islam must be defined as a manner of warfare and we are doomed to remain in constant watch of threats. The irony for me, is that the desire of Islam to rise and thrive is little different from the holiest of infidels for Muslims, the Jewish people. While Islam claims to be the fastest growing religion in the world, its membership consists not of devout believers but women coerced into conversion upon marriage, children being kidnapped outside their homelands to enforce their religious adherence and of the disenfranchised. It is too often the convert and the newly awaked re-vert who most want to show their devoutness to Islam that are willing to spend their lives blowing up others and themselves.

Tamerlan and Dzhokar were both disenfranchised. Disenfranchised like many young people in the world today who may choose drugs, suicide and self harm to leave their legacy on a world that seems deaf and senseless to their needs and pain. While I obviously do not advocate terrorism in any form, I feel for their mother, she knew their pain as only a mother can.