When the English-language media discuss the Islamic State, they have taken an interest in its battlefield performance, oppression of women, or atrocities. Administrative practices do not attract the same media attention. While the atrocities and the oppression of women are admittedly spectacular, the administrative issues shed more light on a central question: why does anybody support the Islamic State?
Few journalists have reported from territories under the control of the Islamic State, but one notable exception is Medyan Dairieh of Vice News. Working from the Syrian city of Raqqa, Dairieh has visited the front lines with IS fighters and ridden along on police patrol with Hisbah, the IS police force, as in the American TV show “Cops”. One policeman told Dairieh that the Islamic State is “a state and not a group. We aim to build an Islamic state to cover every aspect of life”. On camera, the police enforce modest dress on women, but also check whether tradesmen are cheating customers.
Dairieh also visits a jail and courtroom, where a IS judge declares “the Shariah court has returned rights to the people after the oppression they suffered under the regime’s courts”. The contrast between the IS and “the regime” is the key to understanding why IS enjoys popular support. Well-meaning westerners sometimes ask why Syrians and Iraqis do not strive more vigorously for something called “western-style democracy”. Why do Arabs not found a political movement that respects human rights? A party, say, that tolerates religious differences? That celebrates freedom of speech and press? That defends the rights of women? That seeks government by elected officials, rather than dictators?
In the past, Arabs have supported a party professing such principles. In 1947, a political party in Damascus, founded by a Muslim and a Christian, advocated a parliamentary government “directly elected by the people” (article 14), demanded that women enjoy “the full rights of citizenship” (article 12), and rejected “all kinds of denominational, sectarian, tribal, ethnic and regional fanaticism” (article 15). Rather than proclaiming even non-denominational Islamic education, its policy advocated “scientific thought free from superstitions and reactionary traditions” (article 43). Schoolchildren in Texas and Kansas should be so lucky! This party, furthermore, enjoyed such success that it came to power in both Syria and Iraq.
The party in question, alas, was the Ba’ath party, factions of which brought Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad to power. The crimes of these two regimes are too numerous to list--it suffices to note that both the Syrian and Iraqi incarnations of the Ba’ath party routinely used torture to intimidate their political opponents and have used poison gas on civilian populations. The Ba’ath party has, to say the least, disappointed hopes for democratic and pluralist government in the Arab world.
The mostly secular politicians that govern post-Ba’athist Iraq inspire little more confidence. Politics can be a sordid business even in western-style democracies, but Iraq is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, at least according to rankings prepared by Transparency International. Officials of the IS, by contrast, want to impose Islamic law, which, for devout Sunni, probably compares favourably to plundering militias and civil war.
The lack of viable alternatives does not, of course, excuse the atrocities of the IS. Its fierce version of Sunni Islam has no hope of appealing to Syria’s Druze, Iraq’s numerous Shia, or the dwindling population of Christians in both countries. The cycle of violence, however, encourages Sunni Muslims to support a group that fights for Sunnis, rather than against them. Sectarian civil war has mostly silenced advocates of inter-ethnic cooperation. Assad’s regime has long oppressed the Sunni majority of Syria: Syrian Shia generally support Assad for fear of reprisals should the regime fall. Sunnis were favoured under Saddam Hussein, but have lost influence since the American invasion. The IS, whatever its faults, has vigorously defended Sunni interests.
So, what is to be done about the IS? In the short term, military confrontation is inevitable. The United States, reluctant to be drawn into another endless war, hopes to fight through local proxies: the Iraqi government, Kurdish fighters, and the Free Syrian Army. Hopefully, it will work. In the long term, however, the international community will have to make some concessions to Sunni aspirations, which will probably involve working with political leaders who built a power base on Sunni piety.