Start with history: 100 years of making Isis

We raise flags in solidarity and in acts of defiance; we salute them as collective symbols of strength.

In the West, they are physical representations of a communal, national and historical identity. As social media turns blue, white and red for France, we unite under one flag and the cry for ‘liberty, equality and fraternity.’ We know what the French flag stands for and the history it has of bringing together a nation.

But we are also forced to recognize that an entirely new flag now waves over areas of the Middle East. This shahada-adorned Isis flag promises a new, radical form of nationalism for a region that has a complicated relationship with the term.* We must first realize that the Isis flag was not just born out of the current War on Terror; it is the accumulation of a century of thwarted nationalism.

To understand the roots of this nationalism, we must actually begin in Europe. Nationalism, the Patron Saint of modern day World Wars, swept through nineteenth century Europe as an internal reaction to authoritarian rulers. Throughout the centuries, autocratic European leaders amassed territories through wars and strategic marriages. During the process, they persecuted and marginalized different ethnic and religious groups within their ever-shifting borders. Discontent with French kings, British monarchs, and Prussian Kaisers sparked everyday citizens to revolt, which reached its climax in the mid-nineteenth century. This romantic, organically-grown nationalism was spearheaded by both Enlightenment ideas and the desire for nation-states created and governed by someone of that same nationality.

While it was Balkan, Serbian nationalism in the Ottoman Empire that catalyzed the collapse of empires during World War I, nationalism never really took root anywhere else in Arab-majority lands. This seems strange, particularly because of how economically and culturally connected the Middle East and Europe were at the time. But two main things stopped Middle East nationalism from growing in the same way: Ottoman leadership style and foreign intervention.

Unlike their European counterparts, Ottoman sultans and rulers granted limited self-rule and basic autonomy to the diverse people in their empire in what was known as the millet system. *Their Middle East land holdings included large Arab, Christian, Jewish and other small minority groups, who all lived in relative peace because of this autonomy. Without the need to unite and revolt against tyrannical rule, the banner of nationalism failed to wave with such fervor.

But foreign intervention in the Middle East after World War I would create a new understanding of nationalism — one with direct consequences for the rise of Isis.

Great Britain, eager to destroy the Ottoman Empire during World War I, turned to Arab nationalists and promised an independent state, free of Turkish control. The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence (1916) allowed Western powers to not only destroy the Ottoman rule, but also to gain a strategic foothold in the area. As time would reveal, Great Britain never intended to give Arab fully autonomy, as evidence with the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.

Even after the fall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, national identity was still largely thwarted by foreign powers. But more importantly, Arab citizens were not given a seat at the table for discussions about their own lands. Great Britain and France implemented a ‘divide and conquer’ sort of nation-building strategy, creating and controlling Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and other newly formed territories. With little historical precedent for unity against a foreign ruler, organic nationalism — stemming from ordinary citizens fighting to define their own identity — never developed. Instead, the idea of a ‘nation’ was artificially created by Western powers. Unlike their European counterparts, Middle Eastern groups did not have a voice in building a state based on their determined views or type of nationalism.

As the twentieth century progressed, moments of nationalism did indeed spark in the Middle East. However, these were created more out of the fear of Israel and not for love of country or a desire to internally improve a nation. As writer and analyst Lamis Andoni has said, “slogans against a foreign enemy — no matter how legitimate — ring hollow if the struggle for democratic freedoms is set aside.”

Without a solidified national identity, strong-arm leaders like Assad, Hussein and others gathered power and strategic foreign support. For a moment during the Arab Spring in 2011, it appeared as though the general population would unite around a common call for self-determination. People in Iran, Syria, Egypt and other places stood up against their rulers and the cultural, political and economic status quo. During this time, flags waved with pride and with hope. Yet as the spring fizzled into another summer of destruction and broken promises, attempts at organic nationalism were destroyed. And where a vacuum exists or there is such tension between people and their ruler, citizens will find a flag that promises change.

In Europe, the strongest forms of nationalism were born from an internal struggle. It was Slavic nationalism that lit the match for World War I. It was Hitler’s perverted form of nationalism that sought unity over hatred of Jewish citizens within their border.

But there are also positive examples of organic nationalism. It spearheaded the French and American Revolutions and the creation of countless democratic countries in the past century. This positive form of nationalism grew when citizens were able to determine their future and their terms of citizenship.

But the time for this organic, citizen-run nationalism has come and gone in the Middle East. Now we are left to fight a twisted and opportunistic form of nationalism. It takes advantage of the disenfranchised and the suppressed dreams of several generations. In Isis’ own words, they are here to help those in the Middle East “drowning in oceans of disgrace, being nursed on the milk of humiliation, and being ruled by the vilest of all people.”

Isis’ goal of creating a caliphate has taken an extremely dangerous route which impacts the security of the entire world. Their use of terror is wrong, but their ambitions are far from random. Since its founding three years ago, Isis has explicitly called for the end of the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, as it is a sign of foreign intervention and geopolitical divisions in the region. Through online and in-person recruiting around the world, they hope to reverse the fragmentation of the Islamic world that has only grown over the past 100 years. What makes this so dangerous is that Isis is taking full advantage of exploited and disenfranchised peoples in the region to spread their hateful, radicalized message of change.

They are twisting the promise of nationalism for their own terroristic agenda.

Now the beauty, and the complexity, of history is that determining what is tangentially important and what is most relevant depends on perspective. Timelines are never enough; collective memory is never so linear. Nationalism — perhaps the most important idea of the modern era — ebbs and flows depending on foreign threats and internal leadership. But it is key to understanding why a new flag is currently waving over parts of Syria and Iraq.

In the age of constant connection, we struggle to understand basic definitions; we strain to piece together contextual clues that give us a full picture of current events. Too often, we oversimplify an issue. But we cannot make the mistake of thinking that the rise of Isis is just about radical Islamist terror or the wars started under Bush. We must dig deeper and think about how core values of nationalism did, or didn’t, take root in the region. We must think about what foreign flags once flew in the region in order to understand the new flag that waves.