By Sreeram Sundar Chaulia
June 30, 2015
One year since the Islamic State or ISIS declared the establishment of a caliphate; it has metastasised numerically, territorially and financially into a nightmarish empire.
With 30,000 hardened jihadist fighters drawn from nearly 100 countries in its ranks, the harsh Sharia-based caliphate reigns over eight million civilians in Iraq and Syria on land equivalent to the UK’s size. Besides donations from Sunni fundamentalist regimes and wealthy private patrons, ISIS taxes and extorts the population under its iron grip, sells oil on the black market, plunders banks, smuggles antiquities and kidnaps victims for ransom.
Most alarmingly, ISIS has grown into a global ideological brand, franchising affiliates in Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Philippines. Terrorist attacks in multiple continents by ‘lone wolves’ now derive inspiration from ISIS, leaving al-Qaida behind in the iconography of jihad.
These gains have occurred in spite of an aerial bombing campaign by America, fierce resistance on the ground by Iran-backed Shia militias, Kurdish guerrillas and some Sunni tribal outfits. The US claims to have eliminated more than 10,000 ISIS combatants in the last nine months of airstrikes, but also admits that the caliphate dyed in a culture of martyrdom and armed with slick online propaganda machinery has the capacity to ‘adequately replace’ slain holy warriors.
The ISIS caliphate is holding its ground by capitalising on a combination of crises in the Muslim world. Firstly, there is a crisis of geopolitics, wherein conservative Sunni regimes and their backers in Washington are refusing to join hands with Shia Iran, even though the latter has capable assets to beat ISIS.
Secondly, ISIS is a beneficiary of a crisis of masculinity in the Muslim world. It has attracted thousands of sexually repressed and religiously indoctrinated Sunni males with the lure of owning ‘slave girls’ belonging to minority communities like Yazidis and Christians. Chilling narratives of crimes against women in captivity attract depraved men wishing to prove their manhood against ‘infidels’ in a religiously ordained way.
Thirdly, ISIS thrives on the entrenched crisis of governance in the Middle East which the Arab Spring had originally sought to address. The failure of despotic states to provide freedom, equality and political inclusion is not limited to Syria or Iraq, but extends throughout the region. As long as ISIS ravages only Shia rulers of Damascus and Baghdad and steers clear of challenging Sunni tyrannies like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and UAE, it helps to keep a lid on the governance failure that is endemic.
The ISIS caliphate’s so-called Quranic rule is more repressive than what Sunnis currently endure in authoritarian countries, but it offers a mythical release from daily problems by preaching that a ‘pure’ religious state is infallible since God is on its side. Its devilish birthday resolution will be to enjoy many happy returns by ensuring that the three crises of geopolitics, masculinity and governance are perpetuated.
Source: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/isis-caliphates-first-birthday-it-now-inspires-lone-wolf-terrorism-across-continents/
11:18 PM
Moderate Islamist here
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