Christiane Amanpour Reports on Muslim Youth in Generation Islam

Two-hour documentary airs on CNN International on 14 August at 1930hrs IST

CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour gives viewers a look inside the battle for the hearts and minds of youth in the Muslim world in ‘Amanpour Reports: Generation Islam’, a new documentary that premieres on CNN International on Friday, August 14 at 1930hrs and replays on Saturday, August 15 at 0030hrs IST. This special report airs just a month before Amanpour launches her highly-anticipated weekday program, ‘Amanpour.’

Fresh from her extraordinary reporting from inside Iran during the Iranian elections, Amanpour takes viewers across Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza for ‘Generation Islam’. The documentary, which premieres just one week before Afghanistan’s national elections on August 20, comes as U.S. President Barack Obama seeks to forge new relationships with Muslim nations and intensify the U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan.

“In my travels through Gaza and Afghanistan, again and again I found people more interested in a future than a fight. Parents who want the best for their children and children who know there has to be something better,” says Amanpour. “And their allegiance will be to whoever helps them get there.”

More than half of the people living in the crowded Gaza strip are under the age of 18, and nearly 45 percent of the population in Afghanistan is under the age of 14. Amanpour speaks to several Americans living and working in these places and providing alternatives to young Muslims, who are potentially vulnerable to manipulation by Muslim fundamentalists and thus prime recruits.

Last year, as U.S. forces accidentally killed nearly 1,000 Afghan civilians, the Taliban began in earnest to re-establish its influence among people crushed by poverty and war. Amanpour illustrates what’s at stake with the story of one Afghan boy, Nassim, and his family. When he was just 10 years old, Nassim, along with his mother and brother, was cast out of his home after his father took a second wife. Nassim drifted from city to city for nearly a year before he found an orphanage run by American Marnie Gustafson. Nassim’s 15-year-old brother, Alahdad, did not go with Nassim to the orphanage. Instead, he was taken in by a fundamentalist madrasa near Herat, Afghanistan, a region considered by many to be Taliban country.

Viewers also learn about Palestinian obstetrician-gynecologist Izzeldin Abuelaish, whose Gaza home was bombarded by Israeli shells during the offensive in the Gaza Strip, leaving three of his daughters dead. Dr. Abuelaish invites Amanpour to meet some member of his family who survived the January 16 attack. Despite his tragic loss, Dr. Abuelaish, who was recently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, continues to work for peace.

Amanpour also meets 35 children at a Gaza pre-school, many of whom have either lost their homes or even a parent to the war with Israel. Teachers notice behavior problems from these youngsters that seem related to their exposure to war and violence. Amanpour speaks to Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, an expert in Muslim extremism, and he tells her that up to one third of the children surveyed there say that they want to be a martyr.

“Palestinian boys, even at age five, feel like they need to defend their families and their society, becoming disheartened when they can’t,” says Dr. El-Sarraj, a psychiatrist and founder-president of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and a commissioner of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights.

-Sampurn Media