A pleasant surprise- an article about ISIS on Stuff

The other day I came across an article on Stuff that restored some of my faith in the media and in humanity in general. It was about Islam, ISIS, and terrorism, so nothing unusual...except it was written by a person from the muslim community with the intent to inform readers and present a different angle from how the media normally portrays these topics. I was intrigued as I began reading to see whether this piece would use an ‘insider’ to simply reinforce typical western media dialogue around Islam and ISIS, or would it start a new dialogue. I can say I was pleasantly surprised.

The article discusses a brief history of Islam and how it was reformed in the 1700’s resulting in Wahhabism becoming a deep rooted aspect of modern Islam. Wahhabism is extremely conservative and has provided the grounds for the likes of ISIS to build on. By all means read the article link at the bottom to get a better idea of this. Obviously I am not an expert on Islam or Wahhabism so I cannot say whether this article is 100% correct. However, what I found particularly interesting about this article, in relation to the lecture on Orientalism, is a western media outlet publishing an article that disrupts the dominant media narrative around terrorism and Islam. Eurocentrism is not the basis of this article, instead it’s a perspective from someone who would be stereotypically associated with the “East” given with the aim to inform the “West”.

Furthermore, this article provides a small amount of insight into how ISIS maintains power and recruits people- through creating fear of being seen as blasphemous, and through control such as restricting literacy. The article also challenges the language often used by the media in which 'Islam' becomes synonymous with 'terrorism'. Although only so much can be taken into account within a certain word count, this article goes a small way to revealing how and why people join an organisation like ISIS. This helps to humanize those who join terrorist organizations, revealing them as victims of both circumstance and history, countering the dominant narrative that demonizes and dehumanizes terrorists, and by association Muslims. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing okay about attacks which take people’s lives, but we have to understand why people carry out these attacks in order to create change rather than just demonising them, because they are just that- people (I would highly reccomended watching ‘Paradise Now’ if you have difficulty understanding this, not that the film is about ISIS specifically but from the viewpoint of a ‘terrorist’).

Overall, a mainstream media outlet publishing this article can only help to further educate westerners about the multifaceted subject of Islam and terrorism. It is only through attempting to understand that the west’s fear of Islam can be decreased, and resolutions for organisations like ISIS can be found. The article ends with a call for the ideology of ISIS to be delegitimized through Islam itself, by creating a safe space in which Muslims can speak out against Wahhabism without fear of retribution. Knowledge is power, and through awareness the likes of ISIS can be combatted in a productive way, from the ground up, rather than by retaliation which only creates more hate.

I would be interested to know anyone else’s thoughts on the subject, thanks for reading!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/assignments/share-your-news-and-views/14283413/Why-modern-Islam-and-ISIS-are-at-a-stalemate