Over on al-Jazeera’s web site, James Denselow, a research associate at the London-based Foreign Policy Centre, warns that the discussion about ISIS is demonizing the group and insufficiently nuanced:
There is much misinformation being circulated about the scale and origins of sectarianism in the modern Middle East – but there can be little doubt of how ISIL chooses to use it as a source of legitimacy.
By demonising ISIL, you remove any sense of needing to understand that legitimacy, and instead, focus entirely on whatever response you choose to pursue…
Ultimately, deploying the language of “evil” against ISIL is lazy, naive, and often counter-productive. What these words invoke plays into the hands of those in the group who revel in the images of their savage notoriety and are purposefully painting a picture of a millennial conflict that will last generations. A grim prospect indeed.
You know, of all of the injustices in the world, the idea that the Islamic State’s viewpoint isn’t getting a sufficiently nuanced assessment in Western discussions is pretty far down my list of concerns.
There’s only so much that those of us outside the Middle East and the Muslim faith can do to influence sectarianism. We don’t preach from the minbars, we don’t set the tone of discussion around the tea tables and Internet cafes, we don’t make Sunni and Shia believe that the best way to resolve their differences is to kill each other and blow up each other’s mosques.
But we can influence ISIS by taking this…
… and turning it into this: