The Mediapolitics of ISIS: Destruction As Ressentiment

In May 2016, Russia’s Mariinsky Theater orchestra held a classical music performance in the historic city of Palmyra, which had been retaken by the Syrian government after it suffered devastation from the self-proclaimed Islamic State. The concert has become yet another step in the new political race of the 21^st century: a battle where new methods of making political points complement traditional ways of fighting and propaganda.

It would not be an overstatement to say that ISIS redefined what propaganda means today. Ever since the militant group appeared on the world scene, it made itself famous for being a keen adept of social media. Using a number of non-conventional and innovative technologies and not shying away from breaching the legal borders (for example, hacking thousands of Twitter accounts to post messages on behalf of their owners), ISIS aggressively claimed its stake in online media. Even the FBI director James Comey, admitted in 2014 that ISIS propaganda was "unusually slick”.

The influence ISIS yields online is immense. Most of its messages go viral with an average of 72 reposts per post. The self-proclaimed state’s ‘media departments’ produce materials not only in Arabic but in more than 20 other languages including English, French and Russian. Contrary to the popular opinion, ISIS’s online activity does not only target Muslims or seek potential supporters of jihad of all backgrounds from around the world. The records of brutal punishments and the destruction of cultural heritage sites, which have become ISIS’ hallmark, are as much a way of attracting new recruits as they are a means of delivering a political message to the international audience. Gaining the media coverage, condemnation and attention all over the world is what the ISIS aims for with its violent acts.

There are several expert opinions as to why ISIS resorts to such destructive activities, in particular, the demolition of churches, libraries and other ‘lieu de memoires’. The most commonly held one is that through these, the organization reinforces the idea of monotheism, which is so emphatic in the Salafi teaching – despite the fact that the official representatives of Islamic states throughout the world condemn the organization and claim that ISIS strayed from the path of officially accepted interpretations of Islam. An important factor to keep in mind is that ISIS has been making use of the antiquities to finance their activities. In addition, Roula Khalaf and Sam Jones claim that ISIS reports, assassinations and human punishments are a way to ‘demonstrate its record to potential donors’. Jeff Stone of International Business Times reckons that these create the image of ISIS as a kind of ‘all-conquering force’.

The question is, what exactly does ISIS conquer and fight for, and what is the message they are working to deliver? One thing ISIS makes clear is that its activity is directed against the whole of the western world, which plays the role of the generic enemy and addressee of all of their messages. While one may argue that could well be considered an example of political ressentiment, acknowledging this doesn’t give much in terms of understanding what underlies this desire for revenge, and how to combat it.

In a 2010 study called ‘To Change The World’, James Davison Hunter argues that ressentiment is also a form of alternative political psychology. The attempt to introduce alternative histories and ways of conceiving them has been evident in the way ISIS represents itself publicly. The violence and contrast of its propaganda, and the pointed negligence of the traditional western value system carry a larger symbolic message. Destroying the historic loci of knowledge and culture allows ISIS to create a sort of civilizational ‘tabula rasa’ and exclude traces of earlier societal experiences from the cultural memory. Thus, emphasizing the insignificance of the stepping-stones of western civilization (which, after the Second World War, have also come to include the Hague Convention guarantee of the integrity of world cultural heritage), ISIS argues that the values of the world they have declared a war on, are fundamentally different from theirs.

A dangerous dead end in thinking about ISIS is reducing this move to a mere desire to return to traditional, pre-modernization society where custom and habit outweigh innovation and scientific progress. Contrary to the popular opinion, ISIS is not about it, and its skillful use of social media technologies demonstrates this clearly. Langlois argued that ‘tradition is oriented towards a legitimate reference to the past while modernization is oriented towards the mastery of the future,’ ISIS is not looking back to the past, ignoring the future – rather, it is looking out for a different type of future, choosing to remembering its past selectively and thus attempt to control cultural memory.

In this respect, the concert of Mariinsky Theater means much more than simply recapping Russia’s military activities in the region. The performance of Bach, Shedrin and Prokofiev in the site of newly contested memories is a reciprocal political gesture, which aims to proclaim the sustainability of the values and heritage in the world ISIS considers its enemy – a culture unceasing and ever-present even among the ruins, as is the case with Palmyra.