What’s the appeal of the so-called Islamic State? – Billy Douglas-Hamilton
It is a commonly asked question: why do people in countries such as our own United Kingdom travel half way across the world to join an openly terrorist ‘caliphate’? In looking at this issue from the outside, it is almost difficult to pinpoint a similarity in the people who have travelled over to join IS.
It is estimated that around 4,000 people have left homes in the western world to migrate to IS. Many have become jihadist fighters in the apparent hope of achieving martyrdom. A significant number, over 550 women, seem to have gone to become mothers and raise the next generation of jihadist “lions.” Some have left to put their medical expertise to use, and others to help in whatever capacity they can. Their motives are extremely mixed. Indeed, the striking fact about these new pilgrims is that they don’t fit any single profile. They represent a broad spectrum of humanity, from former rappers and criminals to grandparents, to promising young students.
Early in April 2016, it was reported that a family of 12 from Luton, England – including, according to the BBC, “a baby and two grandparents” – had made the journey to Syria. This was the second family believed to have left the United Kingdom for the Islamic State since May of the previous year. Was the family coerced or, as one relative has suggested, manipulated into going to Syria? Were they the victims of some sort of psychological hypnosis? Perhaps, but how can we know: what if that is just what we are told by our government?
The BBC received a statement on the matter from an individual claiming to be an Islamic State fighter, but could not verify its authenticity: “None of us were forced against our will,” it said, describing a land “free from the corruption and oppression of man-made law… in which a Muslim doesn’t feel oppression when practising their religion. In which a parent doesn’t feel the worry of losing their child to the immorality of society. In which the sick and elderly do not wait in agony, tolerating the partiality of race or social class.” It also talked about the “so-called freedom and democracy” in Western states.
The statement, could perhaps serve a propagandistic purpose, and it could well be a fabrication. But it also accurately reflects the sentiments expressed by other Western migrants who have made the journey to Syria, and who, in their social-media postings, have mocked the idea that they have been “brainwashed” into joining IS.
We have to look at the two themes that are commonly mentioned and discussed around this issue, estrangement and a utopian society. Estrangement essentially means no longer being part of a social group and a utopian society is just an imaginary society. People feel as though they have no purpose in life and see this perhaps amazing society that will welcome them, giving them a purpose and ultimately a better life. However, the range of people from the western world who have traveled over to Islamic State is so wide it is hard to prove that what really connects the people travelling over; in fact, a lot of people that have traveled have a good quality of life. So you have to ask your self when looking at this question, do they know something we don’t?
To us it is one of the weirdest things to happen in our life times. We do not understand it and we probably never will; however, if you look back in history it is not unusual for people to move around the world not just to escape their own problems but to fight a cause. The crusades come to mind, when English people of the 12th century following King Richard left England travelled half way across the world to fight a cause, but they intended on returning. When considering all of the evidence we cannot make an easy judgement. There must be something we do not know or at least understand.
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