It seems that the Bowdoin Bubble has finally popped. While we are usually immune to the panic and the distress that the rest of the world faces, the rise of ISIS in the Middle East has achieved a trance-like hold over the student body.
Here at Bowdoin, conversations about ISIS usually revolve around sensationalist fears that our homeland is no longer safe, or focus heavily on the brutal violence and the despicable videos of executions that the group uploads online.
As The New York Times reported, we have Republicans to blame for the ridiculous idea, still circulating now, that ISIS might try to enter the U.S. via the Mexican border.
Additionally, in obsessing over the media coverage of the violence, it seems that the Bowdoin community has forgotten that the problems regarding ISIS are both complex and multilayered. For a new source of information, then, we might consider Alexander’s viewpoint as a Polar Bear now in the Middle East:
The first thing that we should explore is what Arabs call this violent group. It goes by many names, but throughout the Middle East it is referred to as Daesh. Daesh is an acronym for the Arabic name of the group, Al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham, which sounds similar to the word in Arabic that means “to crush” or “to trample.”
People here in Qatar and across the Middle East use this name to refer to the group and its destructive ways in one short word. There have been reports that Daesh fighters have flogged people in territory they control just for using this name, so it’s the name we will use going forward.
My assumption going into the semester was that the war in Syria was still a civil war being fought between government forces and rebel forces made up of the Free Syrian Army, Daesh and the Nusra Front. However, a few conversations with Syrian classmates have made me rethink things.
Firstly, the majority of the Syrians I have talked to agree that the “revolution” has been hijacked by thugs and terrorists that wish only to gain territory and money.
Very few rebel groups continue to fight in the name of Syria. Daesh rallies around its own national causes and the Nusra Front rallies around an international call to arms. This is a war that is no longer about Syria or Iraq, even though it takes place in both Syria and Iraq. The internationalization of the conflict is devastating for Syrians, because their cities and homes are now being destroyed in the name of ideologies and beliefs not of their own making.
Furthermore, my initial tendency was to lump Daesh and the Nusra Front in one pool of crazy terrorist organizations bent on destroying the West. However, the reality is that animosity exists between the two groups, and Arabs express very different sentiments regarding each.
Believe it or not, Daesh and the Nusra Front actively engage in combat against one another, and at least a few Qatari classmates of mine believe Daesh was fostered by the Assad regime to weaken the Nusra Front.
That’s just one of many conspiracy theories that abound about the rise of Daesh, but let’s return to the facts. Unlike the Nusra Front, Daesh has no foreign objectives at this point because it is too concerned with consolidating territory, recruiting more citizens and ensuring service provision in the areas it governs.
Daesh is similar in a sense to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan pre-9/11; however, as of now it appears it has learned from the Taliban’s experience and has rejected aligning with transnational terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.
This is not to say that in the future Daesh won’t focus its sights on the West or harbor a group that does, but for now it appears to be acting solely to enlarge and protect the territory it controls.
This point is supported by Daesh’s strategic decision not to engage in Turkish territory in order to avoid a ground war with the second largest army in NATO.
Daesh is not a benign group, and it poses a substantial threat not only to regional stability but also to the very idea of national identity. In order to be a helpful player in this crisis, America must better understand the motives and makeup of Daesh, and what our regional allies think of the group. Let’s work on bursting the bubble and exploring issues from the other side.