Men In Tunis Joining IS

    Tunisia reportedly has a high standard of living, but men are joining the Islamic State at two to three times the rate of other African nations that have a much lower standard of living, the WSJ reported today. Isn't this a paradox? Only if you believe the "root cause" of terrorism is only poverty. I was having coffee with a beautiful Ph.D. in English at MacDonald's one night when I objected to only that reason. Indeed, I stated the liberal heresy that the root cause was ideology. That earned me an intolerant and ignorant response of "What do you know about the Koran? I doubt if you've read any of it!" Then she put on her coat and walked out of MacDonald's. In that moment, she had lost a lot of her beauty which is good because I won't miss her so much.
    As I read the WSJ article, I learned that Tunisia's Arab Spring hadn't changed anything. One citizen commented that the cops still walked up to people and slapped them in the face, just as before. Money can't assuage getting slapped in the face by cops. So you have this situation in Tunisia: You are a young man full of testosterone, and you are getting slapped around by Tunisia's finest. Or you have this situatin: You are the same young man, but you are in the Islamic State being treated like a man, a heroic man to boot, and being given good food, a rifle, a knive, a weight room, military training, and sexual access to the women and children the Islamic State has as sex slaves. If you do well, you might even be awarded a "wife" sex slave. Tunisia or the Islamic State? What, in the name of reality, do you expect a lot of young testosterone-driven young men to choose?
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary