ISIS and the American Ideological Crisis of Faith

A large part of the ideological work being conducted through American ideological state apparatuses, such as the State Department and White House, over the years has focused on binary oppositions that reaffirm American values through the lens of a modern, multicultural America that nonetheless retains its emphasis on Christian ideals. In 2001, United States President George W. Bush declared “Either you're with us, or you're with the terrorists.” In the past year, this thinking has evolved further with the emergence of the ISIS terror group, and consistent, wall-to-wall sensationalized coverage of the terror group's every advance and accomplishment, running counter to the practice of Christianity worldwide.

While criticism of the horrific acts is common place, analysis of what US/Western foreign policy decisions may have led to the forming of the terror group constitutes a strong absence. An exploration of the West's relationship to the eruption of violence isn't even present. This absence divorces the actions ISIS is taking from any justification, essentializing the violence as being an inherent part of the nature of who they are. Their identity is framed as Muslim, tribal, and fundamentalist. A heavy focus is placed on the propaganda that ISIS disseminates showing violent acts designed to shock spectators. Conservative American media has taken it even further offering it as evidence of the perversion of Islam and as a rationale to a call to arms for the Christian community to confront the influence of Islam in the world. It's that sophisticated, racialized caricature that allows for a sharp, dynamic contrast to be presented against Americanism aligned again and again with Christianity.

Newsweek recently published “The New Exodus: Christians Flee ISIS in the Middle East." It focuses on the overrun of the mountain town of Maaloula, one of the oldest Christian towns in Syria where Aramaic, the ancient language of Jesus, is still spoken. By focusing on language, the article creates another binary between the historic origins of faith and the modern, giving greater value to modern expressions of the cultural history central to those Christian origins. It continues to talk about how Maaloula was once a place of religious tolerance for many centuries, but does a poor job of exploring what might have disturbed that tolerance. Considering it is a mainstay in West Asia, one of the first questions should be how peace was sustained for so many centuries prior to the present moment and how such a constant state of security has suddenly been disturbed. 

The article employs this absence to protect its central argument from real scrutiny. The article later on does get around to describing the attacks as being carried out on other populations besides Christians, but it does so briefly in just a few sentences. It then returns to its central theme of Christian opposition and oppression. The article places emphasis on the communities being the most ancient Christian communities in the world, saying “Some of the oldest Christian communities in the world are disappearing in the very lands where their faith was born and first took root.” It ties Christianity to a common Exodus trope where a people are pushed from their birthplace or land of origin and must fight for their just return in the face of hostility and persecution. The article uses strong Christian symbols and imagery, including that of a Christian bride and Jesus carrying the cross with a bullseye mounted at the center.

In the Independent Journal Review an article was recently published titled “ISIS Declares War on the Cross.”  Again we see a binary created, tied to Islamic/Christian oppositionalism. The article begins by describing recent ISIS "propaganda," describing it overtly as such. This same terminology of propaganda is never used in addressing the message making conducted by the United States. In fact, throughout the articles explored here, the activity of message making is entirely couched beneath a more common sense reportage that is presented as innately unbiased in the search of whatever truth may present itself. 

Also, sourcing of the video that the article addresses seems to be completely bypassed by claiming it was “allegedly” shot in so-and-so location. This has become a routine practice. This allows for news media to provide any information convenient to their argument with immediacy and without the editorial responsibilities that would normally be required in our public and educational discourses. Recently, a Rolling Stone article discussing sexual assault on the University of North Carolina's campus came under public scrutiny for its lack of journalistic validation of the facts, with Columbia University stating, “Rolling Stone article on gang rape was journalistic failure.” No similar high standard is being applied to the information being disseminated on ISIS and other terror groups, which constitutes one of the strongest on-going themes of the nightly, prime time news hour and the twenty-four hour news cycle.

On the “O'Reilly Factor” in recent weeks, a podcast was published titled “The War on Christianity Getting Even Worse." Podcasts as a medium break out certain, more consumable segments of the daily, twenty-four hour news cycle. This gives them greater dissemination in the public discourse and makes them a more central part of the conversation. In the segment lasting about three minutes Mr. O'Reilly states “It is open season on Christians.” What if a modern, American news commentator made a similar counter-hegemonic claim, “It is open season on Muslims?” This would clearly be against the naturalized discourse of common sense in American culture and would oppose the interpolation of viewers, listeners and readers seeing their own faith and cultural origins as naturalized. Yet, such a statement could indeed be interpreted as true with the recent, wrongful slaying of three Muslim students at the University of North Carolina.

The White House has been careful to frame its fight as not a fight with Islam, but one focused on terror in all of its forms. Although, Islam repeatedly is largely conflated with the population centrally impacted by the enforcement of that justice. The podcast goes on to frame its argument around a series of attacks on Christians internationally including “five radical Muslim killers” murdering a large number of students in Kenya, a suicide bombing in Pakistan killing twelve Christians, and the beheading of twenty-one Christians by ISIS in Libya, concluding “So you can see Christians are being slaughtered all over the place.” He ends the podcast with a survey conducted asking the question, “In America today, is the right of religious liberty being threatened?” It's conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute. This question isn't addressing the rights of Muslim religious liberty, but simply Christian American identity. It imposes covert racism by not acknowledging the diversity of faiths in its argument of religious liberty, making liberty and Christianity a conflated entity excluding the broader diversity of practice and expression.

Finally, the news media fails to address West Asian outcomes as relating to the trauma and disenfranchisement related to war, poverty, and education. Violence as a systemic expression of persisting injustice and hegemony is unexplored. A good counterpoint to look at is how the news media looks at our own American violence on the South side of Chicago. In this case, it does frame the violence with a certain degree of sympathy in a context of poverty, racism and social oppression. These same themes are absent completely from the ISIS discussion. Instead, they're otherized as an Oriental force. Through animalization they're framed as being unable to constrain themselves from violence with impulses that are only satiated through violence and conquest. ISIS is presented unquestionably as a violent ideology threatening the very existence of Christianity in the the 21st century.

Sources:

http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/03/new-exodus-christians-flee-isis-middle-east-316785.html

http://www.ijreview.com/2015/02/251741-isis-terrorists/

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4150640454001/the-war-on-christianity-getting-even-worse/#sp=show-clips