A couple of years ago, an organization called Al-Qaeda used to be the entire craze. Everyone was talking about it; it was on the news every day, and everyone knew what it was.
In 2011, Al-Qaeda’s mastermind, after Osama Bin Laden was killed in a covert operation by the United States, there came a hiatus of terrorist organizations, and people started focusing on Assad, and his atrocious regimen. Then came this ultra-extremist organization calling themselves ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī ‘l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām, or Daesh for short. They rapidly took over land created by the vacuum of the fighting between the Rebels and the Syrian Government. Over time, they changed names several times, went to ISIL, then ISIS, and now just IS.
If you ask someone what IS now is, the most common reply you will get is, ‘A terrorist organization.’ For the most part, they are not wrong, IS does fall into the arbitrary definition of terrorism, but they are making the same mistake everyone else is.
IS, for the most part is a certain ultra-orthodox ideology, with a very conservative interpretation of the Islamic Doctrine. Terrorism is merely a by-product.
I see all these nations going to war with the IS, lobbing bombs and mortars left, right and center, without actually addressing the main root cause, which is the ideological influence of IS on second and third generation Muslims in non-Muslim countries.
These young Muslims I’m talking about are often involved in a kind of identity crisis, they have no idea who they exactly are. Are they merely Muslims? What kind of Muslim? Do the surroundings change the religious doctrines? They have this dangerous vacuum created, and they’re basically looking for something to latch onto, something they can identify themselves with. And IS seems to perfectly fit into that vacuum. It’s no surprise then that a considerable part of IS’ boots are not even Muslims from Muslim countries.
So, what should the game plan be? Should we nuke IS into oblivion? Should we instate an information blockade? Should we just go ahead and shame IS? I think what we should do is combat the grass root level influence of IS, by combating it with a social indoctrination, that paints a picture of IS that is extremely repulsive. Bombs won’t damage something that exists as an idea, only and idea can damage or destroy another idea. Start from the bottom, because to force a building to collapse, you merely need to damage it’s foundations.
