Rahul Gandhi’s analysis of the rise of the Islamic State, must have confounded his hosts and audience in Germany. Speaking at an event in Hamburg, he said the terror outfit was the outcome of denial of jobs to locals in Iraq, after the US, which had invaded Iraq in 2003, brought a law that barred members of a particular tribe from employment. This is yet another instance of pop-wisdom for which Rahul Gandhi has become notorious. What made him make this laughable statement? It could either be that he had been wrongly briefed or that he has not read anything substantive about the Islamic State. Both are possibilities, given the sort of people he takes inputs from, and his own lack of reading.
This is exactly what he said: “It (denial of jobs) seemed like a very innocuous decision at that time. But it resulted in a large number of people joining insurgency that fought the US… It didn’t end there. The insurgency slowly entered empty spaces. it entered the empty space in Iraq and Syria and then it connected with a horrific idea called ISIS.”
Rahul Gandhi’s remarks must have puzzled the bearers of the IS flag in the streets of Kashmir, for sure, because these characters have had jobs as the last thing in their minds — all they want is Islamic rule in the region. Global experts must be wondering where they went wrong in analysing the terror group’s seeding and growth, that they should have missed the connect with employment. But what is worse is that Rahul Gandhi has, in Europe of all places which has been witness to many attacks of terrorism, given a justification for the Islamic State and the barbarities it has wreaked across the world. The good part is that his voice does not count for much internationally.
Even so, it would be advisable for the Congress president to find time and read a little on subjects he decides to share his thoughts; depending on unemployed morons in his party to provide him ‘ideas’ cannot but backfire. He must, for instance read The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia Murad. The author lived in a village in northern Iraq, and when she was 21 years of age, IS militants ravaged her village, slaughtered the people there (including her family), took her captive, and made her a sex slave. She was raped and beaten on multiple occasions. Fortunately, she managed to flee and live to tell her tragic story. Are rapes and massacres, not to mention the innumerable terror attacks, the result of unemployment? If so, then god save those societies where job growth is less than satisfactory — and that would include nearly all of the countries.
Rahul Gandhi must also read the exhaustive story of the IS, told by William McCants, in his book, ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. The author has been among the world’s foremost experts on militant Islam, and for this book, he relied on a load of material, including religious texts as interpreted by members of the terror organisation. He argues that the world must find counter-narratives to the twisted ideology the IS promotes. It’s about religious fundamentalism, not some harmless grievance about lack of employment.
Also, there is the book by Fawaz A Gerges, yet another expert on the subject. ISIS: A History, takes the reader to the very roots of this militant movement, its theology and the cultural backdrop. For the author, IS is a new kind of Jihadism. In his The Age of Jihad: Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East, author Patrick Cockburn traces the phenomenon to the theological conflict in the Middle East. The involvement of the US in the region did act as a tonic for the militants, but not because of joblessness, as Rahul Gandhi has suggested, but because the US was seen as Satan — out to destroy the core values of Islam.
All of this must be quite a load for the Congress president. But there is more. ISIS: The State of Terror by Jessica Stern and JM Berger; My Journey Into the Heart of Terror: Ten Days in the Islamic State by Jurgen Todenhofer. This is not the full list, of course, but it is enough for the Congress chief to be in for some serious reading, absorb the essentials, analyse the subject sensibly. If nothing works, he can perhaps spend some time in IS-controlled regions and learn how ‘unemployment’ led to the ‘boys’ taking up the gun and terrorising people across the world.
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