Nigeria, Iraq, Gaza—The Threat is the Same

September 2014

No reporters were able to make it behind the ISIS lines, except a solitary film-maker called Medyan Dairieh. As the Yazidis were stranded up the mountains hoping for international help he wrote of the areas already controlled by ISIS: "This is not some disorganised bloodthirsty terrorist group or makeshift army. They are very organised. Islamic State fighters ruthlessly beheaded Assad's soldiers and spies on the front line. The IS men gave me a horrific video of decapitated soldiers' bodies, which were left lying on the pavement in the centre of Raqqa. Some of the dismembered heads were placed on spikes. They had prisons where they jailed people who had been caught drinking alcohol, and other small offences. I filmed young children telling me that they want to join the Islamic State and kill infidels."

Each of these three cases shocked the world out of its stupor for a short period. Boko Haram, Hamas and ISIS. The Christians, the Jews and the Yazidis. The underlying facts of each story were, in turn, avoided. But it is the unwillingness to tie these stories together, join the dots or work out the overall picture that is most startling.

The truth is that as well as living through a dramatic upsurge in Islamic radicalism around the globe, we are living through a period of strenuous refusal to acknowledge the problem. When there is nothing much to face up to then ignorance is indeed bliss. But when the world is seeing such continual eruptions of the same phenomena and persisting in not noticing, then we know we have a problem.

Anybody who focuses on this area will have noticed in recent months, even more, perhaps, than in recent years, that there is a concerted and active desire to avoid the joining up of these dots. Whenever I venture to mention that Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon or ISIS in Syria and Iraq are at root ideologically identical the same blizzard of denial comes out. "Don't I even know," they ask, "that Hezbollah are fighting ISIS in Syria?" Am I so stupid as to think that two armies which are actually engaged on different sides of a battlefield could share the same objectives?

It doesn't require anyone to think back very far in history to think of movements that had the same ideology but intensely fought each other. If you pick over the carcass of international Communism what stands out most clearly at this remove, apart from the utter awfulness of the whole wretched enterprise? Surely it is the fact of how hard it is today to work out why some of these sects ever disagreed or split with each other in the first place, from the splits involving Lenin and Trotsky right up to the internecine battles in the intellectual salons of North London after the death of the whole project. Reading up on these splits now you have to have the eyes of a hawk and the patience of a saint to work out who split off from whom and why. Historians and connoisseurs of a kind of masochism will doubtless rake over these sordid ashes for generations to come. But they would be missing something if they failed to notice that although this movement had many differences, it also had clear and defined common aspirations. From Leninism to (Gerry) Healeyism there are plenty of interesting byways. But it will be as a bloc that the Communist nightmare will be remembered — for what they all aspired to do, and tried to do, not for the differences between its factions.

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amcdonald

September 1st, 2014
6:09 PM

Zizek does a lot of ideological dot joining in his article in todays Guardian online about the Rotherham horror/islam/Christianity etc . Unfortunately he (and many more in academe and entertainment)turns into an empirically- wrong `Chomsky` regarding Israel`s "aggressive Zionism" in Gaza. In (essentially) lying about the situationists and the use of spectacle he poisons his own well. And continues drinking from it. Israeli Intelligence is more intelligent. I`m glad the young Douglas Murray`s articles are being published. Zizek advocates a positive universal project,an emancipatory Leitkulture shared by all participants. Then doesn`t even mention Uruguay either! He does get the Pussy Riot/Zona Prava artists empirically correct -which is more than can be said for the N Chomskies of `the spectacle of opposition` . The explicit propositions of Femen on the subject being too much/too true and concise/too visual/too feminine ?

amcdonald

August 30th, 2014
12:08 AM

Over at online Hyperallergic-sensitive to art and its discontents (27 aug) is a photopiece of 2 femen activists menstruating and defecating on the Islamic State black flag. Standpoint probably won`t publish it. No sign of Cameron`s (or Douglas Murray`s) proposed (all white male ?) `counter-narrative` to the "poisonous ideology" of the barbaric Islamic State starting in uk politics yet. Inna from Femen fully explains their intentions in the accompanying interview. Radical art for all.

Anthony Maranise, OblSB

August 29th, 2014
1:08 AM

Every major print news media outlet ought to run this as an editorial or opinion piece. You, Mr. Murray, have the guts to say what everyone in this world that so fears political correctness, seems to be too afraid to say. Thus, I applaud you for so doing and also appreciate your insights-- both wise and practical. While, as a Theological scholar, I generally acknowledge the corruption and pain wrought by the Crusades; I do wish to remind so many that the original intention of their having been called was to defend places of Christian devotion. Further, as Islamic extremists (note that I say, extremists-- as I do not attribute evil and atrocity to all faithful Islamic practitioners) became more militant, radical, and intent on the raising of their empire, they simultaneously sought to "snuff out" those considered, as a result of improper interpretation of their own Sacred text, namely Jews & Christians, to be 'infidels,' or non-believers rather than acknowledging that all "persons of the book," find Truth and faith in profession of the One, same God, who is living and true. As the old phrase goes, "History has a way of repeating itself." Regrettably, this seems to be happening in our world again today. While I do not advocate violence, I do believe efforts -- swift ones -- ought to be made to curb the rise of such extremism and religious persecution.

amcdonald

August 28th, 2014
6:08 PM

Douglas Murray is great.He`s got a real talent or the job. Great stuff by him over at the Spectator too with the vids and tv discussion. It`s perfectly true the great British public are joining up the dots.

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