Jivani: Why Young Men Are Drawn Towards Radicalism

OTTAWA, ON (August 17, 2018): For the latest edition of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Straight Talk Q & As, MLI spoke with lawyer, author, and community activist Jamil Jivani. This Straight Talk is based on a conversation between Jivani and MLI Munk Senior Fellow Sean Speer on why young men in particular seem to be drawn to radical ideologies.

As Toronto’s Yonge Street van attack and the mass shooting on the Danforth demonstrate, Canada is no exception when it comes to the rise of violent extremism perpetrated by young men. Jivani argues that this rise in radicalism is happening in part because “there are limits to how many of us benefit from the status quo economically, culturally, and politically. To those who are not benefiting from the status quo, we need to better understand what they need to feel happy and fulfilled.” Read more by clicking here.

Topics discussed with Jamil Jivani included:

• Jivani’s book – Why Young Men? Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity
• The impact of fatherlessness, economic dislocation, and institutional barriers on young men
• The role of public policy and community-based solutions to address these problems

“The young men who buy the guns, who wind up in prison, who are drawn to violence as a way of dealing with their problems, I think those young men are also a short six years away from a potentially good life if they have the right interventions,” says Jivani. “That’s the take-away I have from my life and that’s why it was easy for me to write about people who are terrorists and criminals and gangsters – and yet still have some degree of optimism and hope they could be reformed.”

To read the full Straight Talk Q & A, click here.

For more information media are invited to contact:

Brett Byers
Communications and Digital Media Manager
613-482-8327 x105
brett.byers@macdonaldlaurier.ca