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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books World of Our Youth Themes 4: Our Youth and Effective Work The Negative Attitude Towards Politics Despite the popular slogan "Our religion is politics and politics is our religion", many of our youth take a negative attitude towards politics. What is our view on this?

Actually, youth do not run away from politics per se, but rather from politics of a specific nature, or from difficult political situations, or from a political leadership which has none of the lofty ideals by which the greater political goals may be realized. The activities of many political parties and movements, along with their inner complexities, may be factors that alienate youth from involvement in this environment.

We may find that a youth refuses to participate in the political discourse because of his negative conception of the subject, based on what he has perceived in his environment, on his readings or on a negative conclusion such as politics is chicanery, prevarication, hypocrisy, that one should distance himself from it. It is possible, too, that the issue may stem from a lack of self-confidence or fear of political complexities.

We feel that the negative attitude may be the result of one or another of these elements. It is incumbent on those who work in the political arena, on the one hand, to extend the horizons of youths to greater political issues that concern the umma; and, on the other, to enhance their outlook on the positive implications of struggle, sacrifice and of drawing closer to God (Exalted), such that politics is no longer intimidating or problematic.

The problem of the negative attitude is probably occasioned by the chicanery, cheating, and deception that are part-and-parcel of Realpolitik, and which appear as the very antithesis of morality. In this scenario, politics is reduced to wrangling without any moral guidelines. On the other hand is the concept of religion, structured on the value of high spirituality which carries at its core, the acceptance of God, and behavior in life according to spiritual, moral, and social values.

These values are based on the guidance of God and His ordained Laws. This makes for a great difference in the understanding of the outlines of political function and the guidelines of religion. The relationship of politics to religion, however, does not correspond to this prevalent understanding of politics.