
The anomaly of Barbarism: the brutality of Islamic terrorism has many precedents - nkurz
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/disaster/anomaly-barbarism
======
DanielBMarkham
I love history, so I had to like this. Lots of great references. Good work by
the author.

Having said that, there was a certain amount of smugness and hand-waving I
have to call out. The thesis appeared to be "ISIS? Nothing new here." which I
would mostly agree with. Where we run into problems is when the author tries
to address criticisms of the thesis.

Was the U.S. on some mission to install democracy? I know Bush said so. But
many folks simply wanted people in other lands the opportunity to vote before
deciding to initiate overwhelming destructive force on their society, because
that was where events were headed. Point being, there are many ways to look at
Gulf 1 and 2. (This is why it's best when making historical analyses to stay
away from anything in the last 20-30 years. Too many ways to spin things. Too
many people invested in various narratives that are still alive -- and it's
not necessary to the work of an essay like this.)

I was particularly troubled by the author not actually owning up to the one
unique feature of ISIS: a trans-national groundswell of people with a violent
nihilism. The eschatology was covered, but comparing ISIS to people believing
in UFOs? Meh. Not so much.

In the latter part of the essay, the weaknesses in the beginning are
intensified. We move from the ISIS-not-so-unusual thesis to "Your Pollyanna
view of the merits of one civilization over another is what is causing a lot
of the chaos". Maybe. Maybe the countries of the west have trapped themselves
through the use of free trade and open markets into a situation where some
types of societies just can't continue to exist. It's one thing to blame all
this military intervention on those simple-minded do-gooders. It's another
thing entirely to talk about how the world keeps shrinking, the power of the
individual keeps growing, and the rise from poverty for billions of people
mean that lots of folks who never had to integrate into a modern world are now
stuck doing so.

All of that is to say that there is another argument. If the author had
honestly acknowledged that argument, I'd rate this a 8 or 9. As it is, looks
more like a 5 or 6. Still - well done. You just can't tell one side of the
story if you want to do honest analysis. This was much more an opinion piece
masquerading as analysis.

~~~
return0
Agree with you, and to add that i think the author got trapped in trying to
find historic analogues, instead of pointing out what is different this time.

> "ISIS? Nothing new here." which I would mostly agree with.

There is novelty, mainly the wahabbi-funded campaign to recruit _immigrants_ ,
many of whom second generation, to commit terrorism in their own countries.

Also the author falls into the ISIS propaganda itself: despite those heavily
publicized acts of gory violence, ISIS is not a threat to the west, but to the
people of Syria and other regions. It's false to compare ISIS with the rise of
nazism (just look at the fact that half the population of syria has run away
from them). It's generally pointless to compare barbarism between different
time periods.

In general, the author seems to push forward his opinions instead of making a
honest effort to understand what's going on.

------
Htsthbjig
Quite interesting that people could only see barbarism outside, only the straw
in the eyes of others: How is that possible than an North American entity
talking about barbarism totally ignores the extermination of native Americans?

Is there any better year 0 than after almost all Indians have been killed and
their land stolen?

And yet, totally ignored by the author. History is written by the winners.
Goering used to say that they only wanted to do in Eastern Europe what
(North)Americans had already accomplished.

If you go to Mexico most people is Indian or mixed blood, you can see in their
faces. On the US less than 1% of the population is Indian.

So you go to latin America and you hear about all the abuses of Spain, the
Spain that forbid slavery in 1512. They care because they are the descendants
of the Indians.

The same happened in Australia, they exterminated the native population and
now nobody cares.

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calibraxis
This article reads like so much propaganda. Probably every post-apocalyptic
movie about the US shows it descending into warring right-wing militias, many
ambitious enough to make a state. Many surround themselves with pseudo-
patriotic reactionary Civil War and Christian imagery, and engage in all sorts
of terror.

If you look at worldwide terror, the US & UK are way in the lead in generating
it. Wanna stop terrorism? Start there. And they have some vaguely democracy-
flavored institutions, so most HN readers can have way more of an effect.

(Would US citizens enjoy Chinese foreign policy hacks discussing a North
America they ravaged like: _" A functioning state that enjoyed a reasonable
measure of local support and could keep the peace would be a sufficiently
challenging objective for [Eastern] policy"_?)

------
huuu
_" Perhaps what our culture lacks, in the end, is the ability to understand
itself."_

Unfortunately I think this is very true.

I'm not sure but I think our liberal thinking became money thinking. And when
a lot of decisions are based on money the human factor is lost. Then it
becomes hard to understand what our culture is about.

A small example is the way we build. A lot of buildings are made cheap, for
status, and so on. This alienates us because we as humans don't fit in. But it
can be hard to tell why we got the feeling we don't fit in. The ability to
understand is lost.

------
frobozz
> There have been moments of regression, some of them atrocious, but these are
> only relapses into the barbarism of the past, interrupting a course of
> development that is essentially benign. For anyone who thinks in this way,
> ISIS can only be a mysterious and disastrous anomaly.

I don't understand this bit.

Surely someone who thinks this way would see it as just another atrocious
relapse.

------
return0
Without mention of who's funding it, the article almost makes the case that
ISIS is a historic inevitability.

------
x5n1
> This strange metaphysical fancy lies behind the fashionable theory that when
> people leave advanced countries to join ISIS they do so because they have
> undergone a process of “radicalization.” But who radicalized the tens of
> millions of Europeans who flocked to Nazism and fascism in the interwar
> years? The disaster that ensued was not the result of clever propaganda,
> though that undoubtedly played a part. Interwar Europe demonstrates how
> quickly and easily civilized life can be disrupted and destroyed by the
> impact of war and economic crisis.

The reason people go join ISIS is because they feel their needs are not met by
modern society. Certain needs such as the need to feel important and powerful,
to have some sense of metaphysical meaning are not met by modern society.
Especially for some Muslims living in the West who have not yet integrated
fully into Western society. For them Islam frames their identify and the
metaphysical meaning of their lives.

ISIS in theory and propaganda offers a way to have those needs met. The same
reason people supported Nazis, the British and the French made Germans feel as
if they were a powerless underclass under continuous economic tyranny. Nazism
made them feel powerful and important again, it gave them a sense of community
and meaning.

The West has worked hard to make Muslims feel impotent, and their religious
class has exploited this rhetoric to gain and maintain social power, ISIS then
co-opted this rhetoric and promises to make them feel powerful, at least in
theory. Its acts of brutality reiterate this idea.

The only way to deal with this is either get rid of Islam, and help Muslims
frame their needs in terms of Western society. Or to re-frame Islam in a way
that is compatible with modernity, capitalism, and modern society. The second
being a much harder goal.

~~~
vixen99
I suppose you might be saying that, as a matter of fact, (it happens that)
their needs are not met by modern society. Or are you saying it's all our
fault as usual?

I'm probably missing something but how has the West worked hard to make
Muslims feel impotent?

Totally agree with your final point. There's not much sign if any that a re-
framing of Islam is going to take place. Ever tried asking a Muslim if there
is any bit of the Koran that should be ignored or altered?

"Pew Poll Finds Overwhelming Support For Executing People For Apostasy In
Afghanistan and Other Muslim Nations"

[https://jonathanturley.org/2013/05/03/pew-poll-finds-
overwhe...](https://jonathanturley.org/2013/05/03/pew-poll-finds-overwhelming-
support-for-executing-people-for-apostasy-in-afghanistan-and-other-muslim-
nations/)

~~~
Kristine1975
Report on the Pew Poll:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/01...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/01/64-percent-
of-muslims-in-egypt-and-pakistan-support-the-death-penalty-for-leaving-islam/)

 _Majorities of Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan support the death penalty for
leaving Islam_

Not "other Muslim Nations" as the blog author claims.

And:

 _Pew notes that many respondents said sharia should apply only to Muslims
and, just as importantly, that "Muslims differ widely in how they interpret
certain aspects of sharia, including whether divorce and family planning are
morally acceptable."_

------
anexprogrammer
A refreshingly well written and researched piece. The most accurate account of
the causes of the situation in the Middle East I can recall reading in years.

------
Kristine1975
Those precedents don't seem to include e.g. My Lai or any other act of
barbarism committed by western countries.

------
circlefavshape
Worth pointing out that this is a pretty standard John Gray article. His
central thesis is basically "progress is a myth"

