From a new NIC report, “Mapping the Global Future,” with thanks to Anthony:
Central Asian countries””Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan””face the stiff challenge of keeping the social peace in a context of high population growth, a relatively young population, limited economic prospects, and growing radical Islamic influence.
These are the countries that some Muslim moderates point to as the hope of moderate Islam, because they have evolved Islamic cultures that pay scant attention to jihad and have generally harmonious relations with non-Muslims. However, as I have pointed out many times, these cultures are vulnerable to inroads from jihadists who quote chapter and verse and call young Muslims there back to “pure Islam.”
The report also says this about the future of the Islamic jihad movement worldwide:
Radical Islam. Most of the regions that will experience gains in religious “activists” also have youth bulges, which experts have correlated with high numbers of radical adherents, including Muslim extremists. [11]
Youth bulges are expected to be especially acute in most Middle Eastern and West African countries until at least 2005-2010, and the effects will linger long after.
In the Middle East, radical Islam’s increasing hold reflects the political and economic alienation of many young Muslims from their unresponsive and unrepresentative governments and related failure of many predominantly Muslim states to reap significant economic gains from globalization.
The spread of radical Islam will have a significant global impact leading to 2020, rallying disparate ethnic and national groups and perhaps even creating an authority that transcends national boundaries. Part of the appeal of radical Islam involves its call for a return by Muslims to earlier roots when Islamic civilization was at the forefront of global change. The collective feelings of alienation and estrangement which radical Islam draws upon are unlikely to dissipate until the Muslim world again appears to be more fully integrated into the world economy.
“Radical Islam will have a significant global impact”¦ rallying disparate ethnic and national groups and perhaps even creating an authority that transcends national boundaries.”
Radical Islam will continue to appeal to many Muslim migrants who are attracted to the more prosperous West for employment opportunities but do not feel at home in what they perceive as an alien culture.
Here, courtesy Robert Adams, is a link to a pdf of the entire report. (Note: it’s a 123-page, 6.7 MB download)