Counteracting ‘Daesh’: Lessons from Paris
May 18, 2016, 5:06 pm

As Baghdad reels from a wave of suicide bombings claimed by Islamist extremists which have killed and wounded over 400 in the past week, there are lessons to be learned from how the media deals with these terror attacks – whether they are in the Middle East or in the heart of Europe.

Semantics and social media narratives are crucial battlegrounds in the war against terrorism.

The Paris attacks that took place on November 13, 2015 offer some important insights for us to consider. In the waking hours following the attacks, as people around the world were sharing their reactions to the horrific events using various social media platforms, the nature, tone and content of online conversations was being shaped by a discursive process of sense-making.

In the first few hours as reports of the events were still unfolding, Facebook profiles and national landmarks and monuments worldwide (from Egypt’s pyramids to New York’s Empire State Building) were adopting the colors of the French flag (bleu, blanc, rouge) in solidarity with the people of Paris.

Less than 12 hours later, however, a different narrative began to emerge: one that effectively reaffirmed that the scourge of terrorism was indiscriminate and global in its reach.

By reminding us of similar terrorist attacks in Beirut, Lagos, Nairobi and other cities of the world that often go underreported by Western mass media, it is abundantly clear that terrorism is not an “East versus West” or “us versus them” scenario.

This week’s devastating attacks in Baghdad drive this point home.

In fact, among the most memorable social media posts were graphs depicting statistics on terrorist attacks in 2015, which indicated that over 90 per cent of the victims of violent terrorism were of Muslim and/or Arab origin. This transformation of public discourse within a few short hours highlights the diffusive, discursive, and global influence of social media.

Such valuable data, however, did little to temper the knee-jerk reaction by xenophobes and far right politicians in Europe and the US, who exploited the attacks to fan the flames of Islamophobia and further their own anti-immigration agendas.

Many politicians and pundits alike were quick to draw false connections between migration and terror, disregarding any distinction between violent extremism and peaceful Islam or Muslims. Some may argue that the media is somewhat, if not equally, complicit in sustaining heated political rhetoric surrounding Islam.

According to Dalia Mogahed, a former advisor to President Obama, co-author of the book Who Speaks for Islam?, and Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington D.C., the media ignores not the silent minority, but the silenced majority.

Mogahed argues that while the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject the proclamations of terrorist groups like ISIL, and denounce them as un-Islamic, mainstream media continues to propagate a more sensationalist and divisive narrative of “us versus them”.

Ironically, the anti-Muslim backlash that spread through Europe and the US was exactly the type of response terrorist groups like ISIL are banking on.

ISIL sees this stigmatization of Muslims in the “West” as the perfect recruitment tool, and has built an army of thousands of foreign fighters — many of them from Europe — by tapping into a reservoir of marginalized youth. Here’s where a deeper understanding of ISIL’s ideology and motivation becomes imperative to counteracting its destructiveness and reach.

Desperately seeking legitimacy

A spate of suicide attacks carried out by ISIL has killed and maimed hundreds in Baghdad in the past week [Xinhua]

In order to validate its claim as the new caliphate, ISIL needs to control land. The caliph’s legitimacy is hinged on his ability to enforce ISIL’s extreme and distorted interpretation of Sharia, and the caliphate can only do that if ISIL can maintain its territorial conquests.

Interestingly, ISIL is not interested in pushing its way into European territory; it has set its sights solely on Arab lands.

Without land and Muslim populations on which their version of Sharia can be administered, a caliph is effectively delegitimized, and stripped of credibility, jurisdiction, and authority to lead, thus rendering ISIL leaderless and vulnerable to internal fission and implosion.

Subsequently, in order to maintain and expand its territorial control, ISIL’s very survival rests on recruiting more foreign fighters and expanding its volunteer army. Many of ISIL’s marketing and recruitment campaigns play on the sentiments of isolation and disenfranchisement felt by youth in some parts of Europe or the US.

So when politicians and mainstream media respond to terrorist attacks like Paris by perpetuating anti-Muslim or xenophobic rhetoric, they are playing directly into the hands of violent extremists.

The final lesson to take away from the recent terrorist attacks around the world lies in the power of language and naming. Whether we use ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) or IS (Islamic State), all three terms are aspirational in that the terrorist group neither represents Islam nor is it a state.

They may aspire to and claim to represent both, but that is far from the truth. And, in using their terminology, governments and people are legitimizing them and lending credibility and validation to their aspirational claims.

Moreover, all three acronyms contribute to confusion, and a conflation of the terms “Islam”, “Muslims”, and “Islamists”, which are respectively very different concepts. Just recently President Obama remarked “ISIL is not Islamic . . . and [is] certainly not a state.”

Muslim scholars around the world agree and have been very vocal in their denunciation of the group.

Instead, we should follow the example of the Muslim and Arab worlds, and use the Arabic term “Daesh”, which in Arabic spells out the acronym al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. Furthermore, “Daesh” represents a double entendre in that it can also be used as a derogatory term referring to “a bigot who imposes his view on others.”

Words and language carry not only meaning but also much power.

So, from here on out, let’s put to rest references to this apocalyptic alternate reality, and adopt the more befitting term “Daesh”.

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