Troubled world times - A reflective piece about ISIS
"Don't you think we are living through troubled times?", Jie asked from across the study room.
I directed my gaze towards her, puzzled.
"Don't you know... the rise of crime in Singapore and the surge of terrorism? Haven't you heard of ISIS?", she quizzed.
"What's ISIS?", I asked, none the wiser.
"A group of terrorists deemed to become more powerful than Al Qaeda."
That caught my attention.
The next day, I did some internet research on ISIS first thing in the morning before I even had breakfast. My eyes were glued to the search engine portal of my mobile phone.
In this post, I'll be sharing my findings on ISIS, arguably one of the greatest threats in the world right now, to illustrate how troubled the world appears to be. Information was extracted from Google and can be found in some of the linked articles above.
Summary of my findings:
ISIS is the short form of the 'Islamic State of Iraq and Syria' and is also commonly known as ISIL ('The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant'). Its roots trace back to 1999 when it was known as Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād, which stands for "The Organization of Monotheism and Jihad". This group achieved infamy during the early days of the Iraq Insurgency in 2003 when it carried out suicide attacks on civilians and beheaded hostages. It has since been infamous for employing extreme forms of violence, inclusive of extensive killing of prisoners, public flogging of people who fail to behave "religiously", massacre of women who refuse to subject themselves to sexual jihad/slavery (without pardon to pregnant women), and video-recorded decapitation of journalists. One of its recent acts of terrorism was to demand that Christians in its territory either convert their faith, pay jizya (tax non-muslims give to prove their subservience to the Islamic state and its laws), abandon their homes, or be executed. Its primary motive for violence and involvement in acts of terror is allegedly to establish itself as a Caliphate (a form of Islamic political-religious leadership) and build an Islamic state in the Levant under a Caliph (successor of the Islamic prophet Muhammad), who is believed to be ISIS's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (recently rumored to have been killed by American air strikes). It also supposedly wants to restore Islamic practices to its original spirit and purity, rejecting innovation in the religion, viewing people who deviate fromstrict Salafist doctrine and ISIS's interpretations of it as infidels.
ISIS versus notorious Al Qaeda:
Although ISIS was previously 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' and was an ally of Al Qaeda in Syrian Civil War, it has allegedly divorced connections with the latter terrorist group after an eight-month power struggle, with Al Qaeda publicly disavowing ties with it in a February 2014 communique, citing ISIS's "notorious intransigence" as the cause. Al Qaeda has been updating its pattern of operations over the years from a centralized hierarchical structure to that of letting independent and like-minded cells carry out activities with loose connections to its core leadership, ISIS being one of those. The relationship between these two radical jihadist organizations, though, was presumably based more on mutual interests than on shared ideology. Although Al Qaeda's alleged end goal is also to establish its "version of Islamic rule across all Muslim territory", it adopts a more long-term approach that focuses on first building a Caliphate. Also, Al Qaeda is said to practise more restraint and strategy in its attacks, focusing on sending impactful messages via spectacular displays of prowess (i.e. 9/11), but ISIS shows little hesitation in attacking on all levels. Al Qaeda is also less focused on seizing land compared to ISIS which functions similar to a conventional army in its fervent claim of territory. ISIS's brutality arguably trumps Al Qaeda's, with the latter carefully treading the line between violence and restraint in an attempt to appeal to less extreme Muslims. In my opinion, Al Qaeda's restraint might partially be resultant of their financial reliance on public support since their main source of money is donor funding, whereas ISIS derives the bulk of its funding from illicit activities (i.e. selling oil on black market).
What makes ISIS threatening?
ISIS is radical, influential, enthused, and has lots of resources to go about its plans. The terror of ISIS is not merely in its violence, which we might feel detached from since we are miles away from its barbarity, but in its successful influence. It has embraced social media to reach out to the young, besides proving its strength through having hijacked a huge territory with dimensions "larger than the UK", hence attracting an estimated 30,000 followers. Some people from Singapore have even flown to Syria to join ISIS in its movement, while other locals have allegedly sold, bought, or paraded ISIS flags. ISIS is believed to appeal especially to those dissatisfied with current authority and governance because of its outright disregard of secular law. The first Western journalist to have returned alive from an extensive look into ISIS territories in Iraq and Syria tells chillingly of the ecstatic enthusiasm of ISIS members that he has never before seen in other war zones. Allegedly, hundreds of voluntary fighters arrive from all over the world each day to join ISIS, while Mosul alone holds approximately 5000 ISIS soldiers. Besides, ISIS appears extremely radical in its beliefs - allegedly claiming that all religions that believe in democracy "have to die". It also supposedly plans on wiping out people of all religions except those that go by "the book" - namely Muslims, Jews, and Christians - the largest planned religious cleansing to date. Although ISIS has not yet become a real threat to the United States as much as Al Qaeda is with its notorious record of successful attacks, some experts believe that ISIS may overtake Al Qaeda to become the most influential terrorist group in the world. It is said to be too brutal even for Al Qaeda.
Are we really living through troubled times?
Truth be told, wars and slavery have been taking place since time immemorial. It is likely, too, that corruption has been happening long before mass communication could make light of them. The advancement in technology and the rise of social media has merely magnified the ugliness of humankind. Modern weaponry has enabled warfare to be conducted on a larger scale, hence killing more lives, and social media has provided an excellent platform for terrorist ideologies to be propagated more quickly and to a wider audience - generating the popular support, manpower, and funds these extremist organizations need to achieve their aims. Humans have created powerful tools that are giants of our time in both good and bad ways, according to the purposes they serve.
Terrorism, rampant corruption, and horrific crimes besiege our world each day, even in Singapore. Recently, there were some high-profile crimes reported here - namely, the Tampines and Ang Mo Kio murders. In light of such horrors, sometimes, I feel that our daily 'problems' such as pimple outbreaks or self esteem issues are really dwarfed. No doubt they can be challenging to manage, they appear trivial when juxtaposed against the trauma and pain direct victims of terrorism in Syria face each day, or the low levels of general morality and conscience that we need to resolve. Over in Syria, civilians have to worry about being killed or tortured for the simplest of reasons such as failing to pray to Allah; sometimes, women are forced into sexual slavery as comfort to terrorist soldiers. It's terrifying to think that we could be somewhat immune to these kinds of atrocities, going about our daily lives without sympathy for the less fortunate war victims, and instead indulging in self pity over trivial issues or "minding our own business".
I chanced upon insensitive netizen comments that Singapore should not partake of the fight against ISIS since we are not the organization's prime target, terrorism elsewhere is none of our business, and it is only wise to conserve resources for ourselves. Such comments, albeit somewhat logical, lack compassion and love. This does not just apply to us per se - not helping to fight against terrorism sends an indirect signal to terrorists that the brutality they exercise is tolerable as long as it is not affecting us directly, which is obviously not the case because what they are doing is plainly wrong. Also, choosing to ignore the need for help from victims is a form of wrongdoing in itself. Yes, it might not be against the law to withhold our help. But we need to realize that the law does not perfectly distinguish moral rightness from wrongfulness (i.e. It is not against the law to cheat on a boyfriend, but that doesn't mean that the act is morally okay); it is more of a system to keep the world in working order. Additionally, the idea of letting others solve their own problems independently is not universalizable, because no country is self-sufficient and we ultimately need help from other nations as well. Also, we would be fools to think that ISIS's agendas would not eventually have repercussions on us in any way. They seek to make a bloodbath of people who do not agree to their doctrines - us included. To be bystanders now means to face a greater terror in future once they weaken our allies in the fight against terrorism and increase their supporters. Terrorism is analogous to a black hole: while a black hole gains more gravitational pull over time as it absorbs more matter, terrorists gain more power and traction over time as they grow in number of followers. Last but not least, we would only be adding to the moral crumbling of society if we were apathetic towards direct victims of terrorism, hence failing to differentiate our moral standing from the questionable morality of terrorists. We need to stand up against terrorism now, to defend the defenseless, to protect our homelands, and very importantly, to preserve the little remnants of humanity and moral goodness we can still find in ourselves.
Terrorism isn't the only major problem in society today. In fact, it might be hard to realize this, but terrorists may not even recognize themselves as such: to them, they are righteous people and we are the iniquitous ones deserving harsh punishment. The general "diseases" of our world, I feel, are selfishness, greed, apathy, lust, thirst for and misappropriation of power, jealousy, and vanity, among others. In almost all crimes and evil doings, we find the aforementioned elements. Even terrorism itself is arguably in part guided by greed and thirst for power. For instance, the demand for taxes to be given by non-believers does not appear as religious as it appears to be politically motivated. There are so many atrocities in the world today; I can't say the same for the world before because I was yet born, but World War I and II serve as reminders that society has always been far from perfect. To name a few problems in the world in recent years, there are 1) the highly speculated forced slavery and organ harvesting of practitioners of Falun Gong (a spiritual discipline) in China by its government (which is allegedly still ongoing), and 2) the hacking of government, religious, and corporate websites by 'Anonymous' (a loosely interconnected international group of activist hackers). The world almost seems scarier by the day. However, it is erroneous of us to only look towards these massive problems to see the troubles in our world today. We need not look further than beyond ourselves, our workplaces, and our community to realize how morality seems to be at a low. Jealousy. Backstabbing. Lying. Moral apathy - this is especially scary because it's hard to realize that we possess it sometimes.
Yet, there is hope in the world. In spite of the overwhelming problems we face, there are beams of light that come in the forms of voluntary welfare groups, donor funding for war victims, social media campaigns for a more compassionate society, and such. We all can be a part of this hope.
To end off this post, I'd like to share a song I love - 'Safe and Sound' by Talor Swift and The Civil Wars - angelically sung by Youtuber Madilyn Bailey, to reflect the melancholy of war times.
There is always war - a war within our minds. We have to defeat it, crush it, and triumph over it.
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