09/09/2025
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A 14-year-old, sec three student was issued an ISA restriction order after self-radicalising from a mishmash of extremist inputs.
He absorbed left-wing anti-Zionist rhetoric rooted in Critical Theoryโs oppressor/oppressed binaries, mixed in far-right anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, layered on Islamist jihadism, and topped it off with hyper-s*xualised incel ideology.
By April this year, he had pledged allegiance to ISIS, endorsed violence against โZionists,โ and identified as an incel (involuntary celibate).
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The media reporting would like to drown you in a litany of ideological labels, giving the impression that this 14-year-old was confused by competing worldviews. But if you look closely, the dominant value set is leftist in character.
The central frame was Critical Theory: oppressed vs oppressor, Palestine vs Israel, capitalism as oppression, โZionistsโ as enemies, women as obstacles. This simplistic binary provided the backbone. Onto that framework, old-school far-right anti-Semitism grafted conspiracy theories about Jewish control. Jihadist extremism then offered the glamour of holy struggle. Finally, incel subcultures presented an identity shaped by s*xual grievance.
And here lies the troubling question: what on earth is a 14-year-old doing with s*xual grievance in the first place? At an age when mischief and curiosity should dominate, this teenager was instead grooming his identity through s*xual insecurity. The fixation on โlooksmaxxingโ and self-worth was wrapped in misogyny and resentment, tied once again to the liberation-style narrative that the system had failed him.
Yes, his worldview was cross-pollinated. But make no mistakeโthe backbone came from left-leaning liberation rhetoric.
Critical Theory created the frame of grievance into which every other radical strand could be slotted.
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How does anyone end up with such a "salad bar" of causes in the first place?
The answer is moral formation... or the lack of it.
When young people grow up with no substantive moral framework, they will cling to causes as substitutes for a moral compass. Every human being has an externalising impulse: it will either be fulfilled in a time-tested framework of responsibility, duty, and service, or it will be cobbled together in a hodgepodge of grievance-based identities.
This 14-year-oldโs story is not an outlier.
It is a harbinger of what is to come if we continue to substitute platitudes like โtoleranceโ and โharmonyโ for substantive moral formation. Now that those values become hollowed-out and synonymous with relativism and conflict avoidance, they cannot carry the weight of shaping a generation. If we ignore moral formation, and continue to allow for the moral fragmentation we're seeing, we will get more โsalad barโ cases: young people cobbling together identities out of grievance, and drifting into danger.
The irony is that Critical Theory, jihadism, and hyper-s*xualisation all promise power, liberation and freedom in some form or another. But the fruit is always the same: radicalisation, bo***ge, and oppression.
The ideologies may differ in branding, but the fruit is the same: radicalisation, bo***ge, and oppression.
That is why we must look beyond the packaging of lofty rhetoric and assess the fruit of the worldviews we adopt, even the ones recommended to us by the professors and universities we trust.
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Parents have a front-line role here. They must be vigilant about their childrenโs inputsโwhat ideologies, slogans, and content they are absorbing online and offline. They must teach discernment, encouraging critical thinking that causes kids to ask hard questions rather than parroting slogans like "love is love" and "from the river to the sea". And they must mentor early, stepping in before ideological red flags harden into identity.
The wider public also bears responsibility. We must challenge the false binaries that reduce all of life to โoppressed vs oppressor.โ We must encourage young people not to anchor their identities in s*xual self-definition, grievance, or other transient ideologies, but to ground their sense of worth in something enduring, eternal, and transcendent.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/sporean-boy-14-given-isa-restriction-order-first-self-radicalisation-case-from-mixed-ideologies