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European far-Right populism and ISIS: Two sides of the same coin?

In 2014, ISIS removed the historic borders between Syria and Iraq, establishing what is known as the Islamic State while enlarging its territory and forming ancillary groups in Africa and Asia. ISIS expanded rapidly and thousands joined from across the world; it was able to carry out terrorist attacks in European capitals and American cities. This violence led to the formation of a US-led coalition that would begin to launch attacks against ISIS.

The polarizing discourse of ISIS called for a single borderless Muslim Umma (‘nation’) ruled by Sharia law. When they removed the borders, announcing the end of the Sykes-Picot agreement that divided the region a century ago, ISIS leaders Abou Mohammad al-Adnani and Omar al-Shishani were revealing a nostalgic desire for a return to a previous time.

This radical discourse calls for the superiority of Muslims only in the lands of Islam and it battles against everyone who disagrees. It calls for the division of the world on the basis of religion or culture, and it rejects any diversity or openness while feeding on its animosity to the West – exactly as its radical Right counterparts in Europe feed on their animosity to Islam and immigrants.

Such polarization discourse has similar features universally, whether it is the populist discourse of the AfD or the religiously radical discourse of ISIS. Both seek to prove the truth of their point of view at the expense of their nemesis, and work towards achieving their goals regardless of the consequences.

History and the present

Historical narratives constitute the most important tenet of the polarization discourse, as history is integral to the identity of a nation that is proud of what it has achieved. This kind of pride never admits the mistakes of the past and sees in history only success and civilizational superiority. History is a narrative whose function is to correct the present and to redirect the people’s course.

ISIS’s 2017 video, ‘One Umma’, presents an opportunity to analyse its understanding of the significance of historical narratives and how they can be twisted to serve its interests. In the documentary-style propaganda film, ISIS presents the most important historical phases of Islam, offering definitions to concepts such as ‘Islamic Umma’ and its identity and territory drawing on Prophet Mohammad’s prophecy regarding the Islamic Caliphate.

According to ISIS, the military and monarchical regimes in the Middle East and North Africa rule without the consent of the people. This is why the Islamist movement promises, “a new dawn following years of loss and lack of moral guidance which sank the Umma in an abyss of humiliation and weakness. It is a ray of hope for the crying wretched in the face of their oppressors.”

In the video, as a narrating voice speaks of the return to the Caliphate in the manner of the Prophet, images appear of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001. These are seen as the start of a new historical epoch, the breaking of a new dawn for the Umma of Islam as the voice claims.

This is the dawn in which a worldwide Muslim jihad is declared against all “countries of the cross”, as is mentioned in the video. A new dawn in which the worldwide jihad and ISIS are a “Caliphate destined by God” and announced by the Prophet.

However, looking to history to correct the present is not necessarily a religious act. The AfD looks at the history of Germany as a national state for the German people despite it being a Christian state. “If the French and the British boast of their emperor or of their war-time prime minister Winston Churchill, we, too, have the right to boast about the achievements of the German soldiers in the two world wars,” says Gauland in a rallying speech.

The AfD seeks to establish a new view of German history. For example, Nazism is seen as but a small blemish in the history of a civilisation and a successful nation that has lasted more than 2,000 years, as Gauland declares in another speech. It is this pride in the past that Gauland seeks, having resigned from the party of chancellor Angela Merkel in 2013, because, he said in an interview, under Merkel’s leadership, the party was no longer what it used to be.

The hatred of alternatives

ISIS views Muslims who do not adhere to its ideology as lagging behind. At a time when ISIS is waging its sacred war in predominantly Muslim countries, it also seeks to drag all Muslims into a war in which they have no stakes. Whoever participates in the world jihad is considered a true Muslim, the ardent defender of religion and land, and if they do not, they are considered laggards or deserters.

In another video released at the end of 2015, entitled ‘Camps of Degradation’, ISIS discusses the issue of immigrants again from a religious perspective and narrates the story of the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina and his triumphant return to Mecca after many years. The video describes how ‘today’s Muslims are leaving the Islamic State, or choosing not to migrate to it, preferring to live under humiliation in Europe’. The reasons why hundreds of thousands are fleeing from countries like Syria and Iraq, which have been destroyed precisely by armed groups like ISIS are never mentioned. Instead the propaganda video goes: “And alas, they fled death only to face it a thousand times a day and to gulp down its bitterness in the high seas. They turn into food in the stomachs of fish. Some suffer extreme cold or extreme heat in the camps of degradation. Confound this life of dishonour! Confound it!”

This way of presenting the refugee question without taking into account the reasons that push people to take boats across the Mediterranean is a polarizing rhetoric used by propagandists to tie the problems of the people or of the land to a specific group. For ISIS, the failure of Muslims to adhere to it leads to its loss, and in exactly the same way the arrival of Muslims in Germany makes it an unsafe country in the eyes of the AfD.

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Omar Alsawadi | Radio Free (2021-03-25T23:00:00+00:00) European far-Right populism and ISIS: Two sides of the same coin?. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2021/03/25/european-far-right-populism-and-isis-two-sides-of-the-same-coin/

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