The Study of Syrian Refugees: From the Academic to the Actual

Dunya Habash

Out of the baking desert heat, I stepped into the even hotter eight-by-three meter corrugated metal box stamped with UNHCR’s logo. Eight faces turned to look up at me as I stumbled across the room with my camera equipment. I bowed in respect to the family’s father and kissed his wife on both cheeks in an attempt to thank them for allowing my intrusion into their cramped lives at Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp. The mother ordered her daughter to prepare the coffee as I set up my equipment. I was nervous and the sweat rolling down my neck only made the situation worse. After months preparing for this moment I found myself hesitating to turn the camera on: Maybe I should chat with them first before starting the interview? I turned to a young girl sitting in the corner holding a baby. “What’s your name?” I asked in Arabic. No response. She stared blindly at the floor. I found out later that she was fourteen and the baby was her son, only three days old.

I met this teenage mother, Amira, the summer of 2014, while filming my documentary about Zaatari, itself only two years old.  Built in 2012 to accommodate the thousands of Syrian refugees who were crossing the border in search of safety, the camp now houses about 80,000 Syrian refugees in the middle of the Jordanian desert.

Recounting Amira’s story will reveal a tragic narrative of war, violence, death, and displacement--a narrative that almost justifies her decision to marry young. Almost. However, my intention is not to add yet another story to the plethora of violent snippets we receive about the war in Syria and the mass exodus it created. Our newsfeeds do a good job of this already. I want to illustrate the resilience of the Syrian people, their willpower to survive and succeed despite the world standing against them. Thinking about Syrian refugees in this way, seeing the beauty in their survival, will help us empathize with them more than when seeing them as victims,  or worse, seeing them as beggars who can do nothing more than wait for international handouts.

And Amira’s story is not the only one I have about Syrians living in camps in Jordan or who made it to Europe.  There are more.  All gathered first-hand.  All true.  None romanticized for a good read.  The details are real.

Ameer was sixteen when he left the love of his life in Damascus to cross the border into Jordan with his family in 2013. At the time, Zaatari was barely a year old and most people were still living in tents. As the oldest son, he worked hard to help rebuild his family’s life in the camp, trading what he could to upgrade the free tent from UNHCR to a corrugated metal trailer known as a caravan, registering his family members with all the NGOs in the camp so they could have access to various services such as healthcare and schooling, and, most importantly, finding a store to purchase minutes for his cell-phone so that his family could stay connected with loved ones left behind in Syria.  The thought of Tasneem never left  him, no matter how busy he was with bettering his life in this new home.   He often replayed the scene of his final night in Damascus, the one at his aunt’s house because she lived in the same building as Tasneem’s family. After everyone went to bed, he left the flat  and called  to her, imploring her to join him outside. They spent the next few hours in each other’s arms, arms that would soon be empty. In Zaatari, Ameer uses this memory to ease--and to sustain-- his yearning.

Rana left Aleppo about a year ago. She watched her father cry at the doorway of her childhood home as he said goodbye to his only daughter. He didn't stop her from leaving. She couldn’t stop from leaving.  She spent about a week traveling through Turkey via bus and train, crossing the Aegean Sea by inflatable boat and continuing through Eastern Europe until she made it to a "camp" in Austria. There are now dozens of these camps across Europe, housing refugees until their ‘status’ is determined. My aunt, who lives in Linz, offered to host this young refugee so that she would not have to live alone in one of these camps. I recently met Rana while visiting my aunt between terms. At first, I did not believe Rana had taken this journey, but the details of her story were too sharp, too vivid, not to be true. She told me how she barely slept for a week, afraid to miss a bus stop or have her only bag with all her belongings stolen. She told me about the mud field she crossed on foot, walking for hours without rest, trying to help the older women who were making the same journey alone.

“How did you feel crossing the Aegean sea on an inflatable boat?”

“I didn’t. I couldn’t feel or think. I was just moving, trying to get as far as I could as fast as I could. Being with other Syrians making the same journey gave me some comfort.”

Back in Zaatari, Ameer dutifully called Tasneem at least once a day. He did this for a year, holding on to the hope that her family would decide to cross the border and move to Zaatari one day. He asked her to wait for him.  Someday, he promised her, he was going to be with her again, and they would get married. He didn’t know how or when, but he knew it would happen. In the meantime, he found a job with one of the NGOs and used his paycheck to help his family improve their situation in the camp. The little he could save for himself, he put away for his future life with Tasneem. Time passed. One day, he heard the news that would change his life--his girl was moving to Zaatari.

Rana got married a few weeks ago to a Syrian refugee working as a chef in Linz, Austria. Their wedding was cozy and elegant, full of love, friends in exile, and good Syrian food. I held Rana’s cell-phone throughout the evening so that her family could see the wedding via Skype. I watched her mother cry as she watched her only daughter’s wedding through a computer screen thousands of mile away, back in war-torn Aleppo. I watched Rana beg her mother to stop crying as she, herself, could not hold back the tears on her wedding day. Even so, she looked so beautiful.

Yes, Hindi and Urdu are the same language

Sparsh Ahuja

"We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say." - Pico Iyer

If you sat a Hindi and an Urdu speaker next to each other in a bar and asked them to have a ten-minute conversation in their native tongues, chances are that both would understand each other without hesitation. Nonetheless, many across the subcontinent consider these two languages to be fundamentally different - and it is often a matter of honour for native speakers to assert this difference when asked what language they speak. This is not unexpected - in India and Pakistan, the language you use ties you not only into a specific culture, but frequently a religion or moral framework with which you supposedly identify. Yet, whilst this feeling of belonging has led to the patronage of a beautiful literary tradition whose influence spans well beyond the subcontinent, it can often have the ugly consequence of creating false division. With Hindutva on the rise and Kashmir suffering the flames of sectarian tension, it is pertinent now more than ever that we take another look at a bitter linguistic debate that undoubtedly shaped the largest mass migration in human history. Are Hindi and Urdu really different languages?

The answer is deceivingly simple - No. According to linguists, Hindi and Urdu, whether spoken in Chandni Chowk in New Delhi, or the old Walled City of Lahore, are standardised registers of the same language. This is not to say that contrasts do not exist between the two registers - indeed, at the most basic level, each are written differently, with Hindi adopting the Devanagari alphabet and Urdu the Perso-Arabic script. In the most formal of settings - the high echelons of literature, for example, or religious ceremony, “shudh” or “pure” Hindi tends to borrow far more heavily from Sanskrit and Prakrit whereas prestige Urdu draws a significant stock of its lexis from Persian, Arabic and Turkish influences. This is, however, as far as the differences go - the grammar and base vocabulary are practically identical, and, insofar as mutual intelligibility is concerned, all of the language in between the two poles - the vernacular Hindustani of the bazaar - is employed far more often than any highly formalised equivalent.                                

Despite these commonalities, it is not hard to find Hindi speakers who would rather display affinity to a liturgical Sanskrit than to the flowing nasta’līq that adorns road signs across India, conveniently ignoring the fact that just over a century ago, there were twice as many Urdu newspapers circulated in the British Raj than Hindi ones. It is equally as frequent to hear their Urdu counterparts argue that the register is a direct descendant of Persian and Arabic whilst classification clearly places it in the Indo-Aryan language family. Across the subcontinent, sibling communities - communities that could be rejoicing in the togetherness of their poetry and prose - are increasingly becoming polarised by a dangerous mix of nationalism and linguistic purism. Unfortunately, much like any tension in the region, one simply has to reflect on the past to figure out why this is the case.

When the Delhi Sultanate reached its zenith in the 13th century, it infused the local Khari Boli languages with a mass of loan words from Arabic, Persian and Chagatai origins. As the Sultanate was replaced by the Mughal empire, this Persianised culture grew stronger, and the “prestige” dialect that emerged from this amalgamation was known as either Hindustani (language of Hindustan) or Dehlavi (language of Delhi). Some of the most famous poets of the subcontinent, such as Amir Khusrow, flourished during this period, writing in Persian and the newly hybridised Khari Boli. The military influence continued to grow as the empire expanded, and by 1800, another name for this same language, written in the Perso-Arabic script, had emerged – Zaban-e-Urdu (language of the army) – a result of the interactions between Persian speaking soldiers and locals in Old Delhi. Each of these terms were used interchangeably.

The divisions began after the collapse of the Empire. Recognising that Persian, the official language of the Mughals, was rarely spoken by the common people, the government of the newly colonised British Raj decided to replace it with Hindustani, written only in the Perso-Arabic script. This triggered a reaction from Hindus across the subcontinent, for many who had grown up with the local Devanagari alphabet now felt pushed aside by the new policy. Politics started erecting linguistic barriers between communities who were heretofore united. This was not because of the contents of the dialects themselves, but because Muslims were simply more likely to be familiar with the Perso-Arabic script and thus benefited from the change. It wasn’t long after that the terms Hindi and Urdu started to take religious connotations – with Hindi being seen as a language for Hindus, and Urdu for Muslims.

The steady divergence of these two communities ultimately resulted in the bloody Partition of 1947, and the Hindustani language was unfortunately caught in the crossfire. Linguistic purism is not endemic to the subcontinent -  however, few would argue that the heavy Sanskritisation one sees in “shudh” Hindi today is a natural evolution of the language. Rather, politically motivated ‘standardisations’ are often recursive attempts at purging common Arabic and Persian loanwords in the hope of ‘de-Islamifiying’ the prestige dialect. Similarly, official Urdu, as spoken in Pakistan today, is being pushed to absorb more and more vocabulary from Arabic as it seeks to shed its colonial roots. It has come to the stage where even the longstanding word for goodbye, “Khuda hafiz”, a Persian borrowing literally translated as “may God protect you”, is being attacked by a Deobandi religious movement asserting that the Arabicised “Allah hafiz”, pointing to the Qu’ranic conception of the divine, is purer. Not all differences are politically motivated - an average speaker in Karachi will inevitably use more Perso-Arabic terms than one in Madhya Pradesh, even in normal conversation, but this is expected - each language exists on a continuum. The danger of intolerance arises, however, when we feel the need to isolate a particular dialect of that language from the rest of that continuum – because, let’s face it - neither Hindi, nor Urdu, would exist as they are today without the beautiful fusion of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit that shaped their development.                                                                                              

Does knowing any of this history entail losing pride in our linguistic heritage? No, of course not. Urdu speakers can still rejoice in the words of Iqbal and Khusrow much like their Hindi speaking brothers and sisters draw strength from Kabir and Tulsidas. Nonetheless, it is up to our generation, increasingly attuned to global values, to push this line just that little bit further. Last week, I was speaking to a mufti from Gujarat, who seemed surprised that my father, a devout Hindu, enjoyed listening to the Urdu qawwalis of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a prominent Pakistani Sufi musician. Yet this never struck me as something strange – the poetry speaks to his heart as much as it does to the Lahori youth who carry Nusrat’s flag today. Embracing the monolith of South Asian culture does not necessarily mean stripping oneself of all identity.  

Perhaps, however, as a self-identifying Hindi speaker, I should think again before I brazenly assert my individuality over the dinner table when asked whether I speak Urdu or not. For in the end, it is my gratitude towards my language that matters, not whether I say “dhanyabad” or “shukria” to express it.

LT. GEN. BIPIN RAWAT: A CHANGE IN ASIA’S NUCLEAR PARADIGM?

Yashaswi Bagga

On the seventeenth of December, 2016, the Indian government designated Lt. Gen. Bipin Rawat as the new Chief of Army Staff, the most senior position in the Indian Army. The appointment itself was controversial, and since it was announced Lt. Gen. Rawat has already made a series of pronouncements which are of immense interest. One of the most important of these was the first official recognition of the existence of the Cold Start doctrine which is a strategy regarding rapid and small-scale war with Pakistan that has been more-or-less accepted to exist for over a decade. 

While it may have been drowned out by the noise over Trump’s inauguration and the surrounding protests, not to mention the Syrian conflict and the associated refugee crisis, this was a significant appointment, not just for India, but also for Asia as a whole. It may have significant consequences for Sino-Indian and India-Pakistan relations and hence on the stability of the Asian Subcontinent. The importance of the appointment stems from three reasons.

The first is that this appointment offers a unique opportunity to understand the approach of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to India’s often conflict-ridden civil and military relations with India and China. A primer to these:

 The BJP, whose electoral appeal and ideology are centred to large extents around a more aggressive nationalism, is known for its relatively hardline stance on these conflicts, especially on ending Pakistani state-sponsored terrorism. One of the justifications given for the recent withdrawal of high-value notes was that these were faked and put into circulation from Pakistan in order to weaken the Indian economy, and to fund terrorism.

Initially, after coming to power in 2014, the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi made several efforts to improve relations with Pakistan, including a highly publicized visit to the his opposing number on the Pakistani side, Nawaz Sharif, on his birthday. However, there were several terrorist attacks in 2016, including the Pathankot attack in January and the Uri attack in September, both on military bases. The latter was especially significant, being on a base that is placed within the controversial territory of Jammu and Kashmir, contested territory (including Chinese claims to some parts) since the two countries attained Independence in 1947. After this, relations fell apart, as they have rather depressingly tended to. This tendency was enhanced by the BJP’s more aggressive ideology itself, and political and electoral compulsions to keep its core demographic happy. In his speech on August 15th, India’s Independence Day, PM Modi upped the ante by indirectly thanking the people of Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for their support. Balochistan is a region in Pakistan, which has long had movements for autonomy and even Independence. This statement was widely seen as support for these independence movements, and elicited angry reactions from Pakistan, which described them as evidence that India had been supporting these movements in order to weaken Pakistan. Pakistan has since responded by increasing their statements in condemnation of Indian actions in Kashmir.

After the Uri attack in September, India launched a cross-border strike on terrorist camps based in Pakistan. These camps were considered to be staging camps for militant preparing to infiltrate India, and to exist with the complicity, if not support, of the Pakistani authorities. The strikes were seen as a departure from a usually more cautious approach to the use of direct military action, which resulted from hesitance to escalate conflict between two nuclear powers. It was also often considered that this reluctance used to use force was seen as a carte blanche by the considerably more aggressive, impulsive, and military-dominated Pakistani establishment.  The so-called ‘surgical strikes’ were greeted with considerable enthusiasm by the Indian public.

However, this was all only a direct function of the politicians heading the government. The opportunity to appoint a new Army Chief after the scheduled retirement of the previous one gave the BJP a chance to directly influence the military through its choice.

Secondly, the controversy surrounding the appointment also holds valuable information. In the Indian military, such appointments are done on the basis of seniority, i.e. length of service. However, in this case, two senior personnel were superseded. This is a rarity; the last time it happened was in 1983. The appointment of the new Chief of Air Staff followed this principle. This led to protests by opposition parties, who accused the government of politicizing the military. Due to the government’s willingness to weather this opprobrium, which they surely knew had to come, we have reason to believe that the government specifically wanted Lt. Gen. Rawat, and nobody else. This indicates that this appointment is not a mere formality, and will have tangible effects.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the statements made by Lt. Gen. Rawat give us reason to pay attention to him.

Immediately after his appointment, he said that the Army would not "shy away from flexing its muscles, if the need be", indicating the possibility of a more proactive army. While this could be passed off as a rather generic statement holding no new information, it was the Chief’s comments regarding Cold Start doctrine that are the most significant, and may mark a shift in Indian attitudes to both, preventing and engaging in conflict, along with a willingness on the part of the government to square up to both, Pakistan, and the flipside of the coin, a possible increase in the likelihood of nuclear war. He said in an interview with India Today, that ‘’The Cold Start doctrine exists for conventional military operations.’’

What is the Cold Start doctrine? It originated in 2001, when the Indian Parliament was attacked by Islamist terrorists, from groups believed to be supported, if not funded, by Pakistan. India initiated a full mobilization along the border. However, this mobilization took a whole month, and illustrated the weakness of India’s strategic practices, which were obsolete and based around the concept of large 'holding corps', intended to halt hostile advances. It was slow and insufficient for offensive purposes, especially because the possibility of nuclear retaliation necessitated speed. The slowness of Indian action allowed Pakistan time to counter-mobilize, the international community to intervene, and allowed Pakistan to make public statements against terrorism, thus reducing Indian justification for military action. As such, India did not attack, and withdrew after a lengthy standoff. It was unable to prove to Pakistan that it was both capable and willing to resort to war.

After this strategic failure, India initiated a reformulation of battle plans. Instead of three large strike corps located in the centre of India in many individual blocks reminiscent of German Blitzkrieg tactics and with their own associated air support and artillery they were to be placed at the border itself. No doubt  with the aim of decreasing Pakistani confidence that India couldn’t respond. The fact that this change made ‘small-scale’ war a prospect effectively reduced the threshold for India military action to begin, with the intention that Pakistani confidence in its ability to engage in asymmetric warfare be reduced. The overall goal is to ‘inflict significant harm on the Pakistan Army before the international community could intercede, and at the same time, pursue narrow enough aims to deny Islamabad a justification to escalate the clash to the nuclear level.’

Pakistani military personnel and politicians have responded by claiming to have reduced their own threshold, or ‘red line’ for the use of nuclear weapons, making repeated statements about their willingness to initiate nuclear war. This has led to an atmosphere of reduced stability.

However, despite the fact that the Cold Start doctrine is well-known, it’s existence has never been officially admitted- until now. In fact, it has been denied by a former Defence Minister and by a sitting army chief (who now happens to be Minister of state for defence, a role somewhat like an assistant Defence Minister). This was led perhaps by 'Indian security managers who might have believed that the ambiguity surrounding the concept’s status and the Indian Army’s ability to implement it had generated enough uncertainty in the mind of Pakistani decision-makers to deter their support for militant attacks within India', according to an article in The Hindu by Vipin Narang and Walter C. Ladwig. It is also quite possible that they did so to limit the risk of Pakistan lowering its nuclear threshold.

Coming back to the present, Lt. Gen. Bipin Rawat’s open acceptance of the existence of such a doctrine seems to indicate a recognition of the fact that the above hypothesis seems not to hold in the face of brazen attacks from Pakistani territory, and a de facto refusal by the Pakistani government to eliminate terrorists conspiring against within its borders. This is likely also a product of the aforementioned aggression of the current government. As such, this represents a momentous shift in the dynamic of India-Pakistan relations, with consequences for the whole world, by having effects on the prevalence of Islamic terrorism and risking the first use of nuclear weapons since the Second World War. What exactly these consequences will be, only time will tell.

Your Protest Means Nothing

Emily Roper

Protests and rallies are no rarity to this world. Consider the protests in Colombia against the barbarity of bull fighting, calling for the constitutional court to make the practise illegal. Think of the protest marches in Venezuela against a government whose rule has seen severe economic decline in the country, or the protests this month against the continued presence of a US military base in northern Italy.

But your protest means nothing. A protest is meaningless in itself, made completely redundant in isolation. Your protest means nothing unless something happens next. A protest is a mechanism for change. It’s a catalyst for action. It’s a trigger for reform. Your protest means nothing and it’s what follows that makes it count.

January 21st 2017 was the day of the Women’s March, and the world witnessed an outstanding turnout in solidarity with America. Many were protesting against Donald Trump and his divisive rhetoric throughout the US presidential campaign, and many were highlighting the persistent issues of gender rights that have come to the fore throughout said campaign. It was a day filled with witty placards and cutting comments, many using humour to cut to the core of a patriarchal mindset and advocate women’s rights as human rights. An estimated 2.5 million individuals stood with America across the globe, and, quite honestly, if you weren’t there then you suffered from some serious FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, for those who are out of the loop). Topics of misogyny, the treatment of refugees, and healthcare were raised in rhyming chants and the sound of marching feet. These protests managed to demonstrate that we are still in dire need of feminism, that there are still issues ingrained in even those societies considered developed, and that persistence in pursuit of equality is still relevant. This cannot be action which stops at January 21st 2017.

The facts are inescapable: on Saturday 21st January we marched for gender equality and women’s rights globally. On Monday 23rd January, President Trump was pictured signing a policy to prevent all NGOs funded by the US federal government from carrying out abortion services across the world, forcing NGOs to either forego a major source of funding, or to stop providing a choice for women who feel they need the second chance that abortion offers. Whilst abortion is a controversial topic, the picture of Trump signing this policy betrays the heart of the problems that the Women’s March attempted to address: Trump, signing these documents, surrounded by seven other men. Alarm bells ringing yet? Two days after the world stood up and stood together for equal gender rights, that protest was already being concealed by legislation. The reproductive rights of women globally have been altered in an action that was overseen by a group of men. Whatever your standpoint on the issue of abortion, this imbalance cannot go unnoticed. Of course, men can sympathise with issues that affect the lives of women, and the simple fact that they were involved in these decisions does not make them misogynistic demons. But unless you have experienced living as someone not endowed with male privilege, should you really be the ones exclusively making those decisions? The proximity of this moment to the Women’s March demonstrates that such huge problems cannot be solved in the adrenaline of a one day protest – the fight goes on.

Organisers of the Women’s March are encouraging people to write to their senators, or Members of Parliament, and to articulate their voice to the people who make the decisions. Hold them accountable, and make them aware that there is a demand for equal gender rights. To share support on social media keeps the dialogue active, and to remain aware of changes in governmental policy keeps parliament accountable. Whether it is a march against governmental decisions to remove pro-democracy lawyers from practise in Hong Kong, or to raise awareness of the conditions and pay issues that caused nurses in France to strike towards the end of 2016, any ultimately successful campaign must be sustained. Your protest means nothing unless it lasts beyond the march.

A protest is not enough. Yes, there is a power in joining your voice with thousands of others, but history is not written by protests alone. Background noise will not protect your rights, and a series of rhyming chants will not drown out inequality. There was an absolute buzz on the day of the Women’s March, even amongst those who weren’t there. But where is the point in marching with 100,000 people in Trafalgar Square, if every other day of the year there is a woman being denied her rights to equal pay and no voice stands up for her? Where is the point in chanting in the streets, if on the other side of the road someone who identifies as non-binary is being harassed and no one steps in? Where is the point in raising your voice, if, behind closed doors, a child is being taught that it’s okay to ‘grab ‘em by the pussy’ when you’re famous, and no other voice is telling him that respect for others is the most important virtue of all?

In all honesty, I thought twice about writing an article on the Women’s March. I thought about it more than twice. It felt over-done, over-analysed, and I was convinced that people would read it with a sigh: ‘not the Women’s March again’. Globally, the struggle for equal gender rights has been ongoing for years: the first country to allow women the vote was New Zealand in 1893, leading the way in an equal and representative democracy. We’re not there yet. It’s been a slog, and we’re still going to have to keep walking that walk. Yes, gender rights get talked about a lot. Yes, the Women’s March received a lot of publicity. Despite this, we need to continue to give it our attention. It is relevant, and it is pertinent, and it is of imminent concern. This affects you. We need this discourse to still be alive, and we need to keep this conversation open.

If this march is to have a legacy, don’t let it be the piles of discarded protest signs at the end of the day that are waiting to be recycled. If our voice is to have traction, we cannot let it be silenced by time and inaction. A protest is a powerful thing until it no longer exists. Your protest means nothing until it changes something. Don’t let your chant stop here.

Reviewing Graeme Wood’s 'The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with Islamic State'

Ruari Clark

Graeme Wood’s book The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with Islamic State has not yet been received with much fanfare on this side of the Atlantic. Which is odd, because reading it one has the sense that it is a book that ought to be essential reading. It is the latest book which attempts to enter the mind of the Islamic State and should be read by anybody with an interest in Middle Eastern politics. Moments of high drama are interceded with bizarre encounters with strange individuals who nevertheless pose a considerable threat to European and international security. It is the kind of book you imagine being approvingly shared between journalists, knowingly passed around Whitehall corridors, and helpfully given to government ministers. Described as ‘indispensable and gripping’ by Niall Ferguson and positively reviewed by David Aaronovitch, Way of the Strangers should be receiving a lot of attention. It is therefore surprising that it was only recently that Wood was interviewed by The Times.

Any delayed reaction to the book’s publication is probably due to Brexit and Trump dominating the vast majority of media attention. Despite occasional newsflashes from Syria and rather hysterical warnings about the Russian ‘threat’, British Middle Eastern policy is no longer an active concern for most people. This means that a book about ISIS, even one as good as this, will have to be lucky if it is to gain wide media attention. To see how luck can play a part in the success of books one merely has to look at J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, which was published at the same time as Trump’s rise to power and so has become the book commentators use to explain that rise.

But it also might be something to do with the book’s central message. Which is this: that, contrary to much of what is publicly said by politicians, the Islamic State is Islamic. This sounds simple enough, and it probably is, but it doesn’t sit well with much received opinion, David Cameron and Barack Obama have both claimed that ISIS is not Islamic. Similar statements have been made by almost all politicians in the Western world. This is understandable, since politicians do not, of course, want to appear to be attacking all Muslims. But, as Wood forcibly points out, it is not true. Indeed, as Way of the Strangers makes clear, there is a grim and hard to deny Islamic logic in much ISIS propaganda and violence. As Wood has said in an interview with NPR, “ISIS has looked into Islamic history with historical accuracy, with intellectual rigour.” This is difficulty for moderate Muslims to accept, and Wood’s work has tended to receive much criticism from those Muslims who are attempting to challenge the theological justifications used by ISIS, but it doesn’t make it any less true.  

It is Wood’s ability to engage seriously with the ideology of the Islamic State that is the most valuable part of the book. Like his original Atlantic piece on which Way of the Strangers is based, Wood has gone around the globe interviewing various supporters of ISIS. From Egypt, to Australia, America and then to London, he is on the trail of those who advocate the creation of a Caliphate through violence. Engaging in conversations with figures like Musa Cerantonio, an Australian supporter of ISIS. In the West ISIS has been able to find a significant number of such converts. Why young men from respectable families (like the American son of a retired soldier) should want to join ISIS is only hinted at by Wood. Though it seems to me that behind many scholarly defences of ISIS is a narcissism and the arrogance of stilted youth. Certain statements bring to mind the kind of teenager who enjoys getting into arcane arguments on the internet (where much of this kind of debate does take place).

Just as interesting – though less bizarre and more frightening – is what Wood reveals about the real players within the Islamic State. Men like al-Zarqawi and al-Baghdadi. These are thinkers who are part of a tradition which in its modern incarnation dates back since the middle of the century. But which is inspired by Wahhabi variants of Islam and has been compared to other sects from as far back as the 8th century. That such a variety of sources and traditions are used by supporters of ISIS demonstrates the difficulty moderate Muslims will have when denying the Islamic nature of their ideology. Their ideology of violence is well thought out and, some say, must be continually carried out if the leaders of the Caliphate are not to remove themselves from their own version of Islam.

Yet most importantly Wood argues that mistaking the Islamic nature of the Islamic State might also be dangerous, since by misunderstanding the nature of ISIS we are unable to find solutions. He writes that ‘pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it.’ It is hard to look at such violence without merely recoiling, or denying the nature of its existence, but it is not helpful. Perhaps disappointingly, though perhaps inevitably, Wood himself does not offer any hard and fast policy prescriptions. However, he does say that a military defeat of ISIS would perhaps be a fatal undermining of its necessary claim to statehood, which suggests that a military solution is necessary. Though of course this would not ‘drain the swamp’ completely. This means that Wood is able to avoid the mistake made by many foreign policy commentators of providing ‘solutions’ to various Middle Eastern ‘problems’ which often reveal little more than the ignorance of the commentator.

At the beginning of this review I said it felt like the kind of book that might find its way around various corridors of power and influence. The problem, of course, is that such books do not appear to be required reading amongst those who direct foreign policy. Or, if they are, the perceived requirements of a narrowly defined domestic policy trumps all other considerations, leading politicians to make bland statements which fail to capture the truth. Way of the Strangers at least allows the proper questions to be asked and the most fruitful conversations to be had. Until these things are done, then no serious solutions to the threat of ISIS will be found.