There has never been something like Da’esh- or has it?
On similarities between the self-proclaimed caliphate and the French Revolution
Also available in German.
On July 14th in 1789, the citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille and thus started what would become known as the French Revolution. This turning point in European history, which has since then been taught to everyone visiting a school does not seem to have many implications for our modern times. Maybe exempt the return of the culotte pants. The revolution was succeeded by the reign of terror by the Jakobites, 20 years of war seeing the rise and fall of Napoleon, the restauration after the Vienna Congress and finally all European monarchs essentially losing their power within the next century.
Nowadays the rise of Da’esh we observe in Iraq and Syria since al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) was founded in 2004 and which has been, under changing names, within the scope of public interest especially since 2013, shows astonishing parallels to the events in revolutionary France:
The Ancien Régime as well as the Iraq after the War and the subsequent occupation were in an awkward economic situations and had lost their moral legitimation in the eyes of their population, respectively they never established such a legitimation. This emptiness was filled by a conception of political order that was diametrically opposed to the particular status quo. These visionary concepts were admired by many, mostly male young adults across countries, Friedrich Schiller and Jihadi John serve as examples for this.
Despite this similarity in reach, these target groups are fundamentally different: the humanistic ideals of the French Revolution attracted mainly bourgeois intellectuals, whereas Da’esh in the “west” is recruiting mainly among young male adults, mostly with a migratory background and sidelined in their self-perception. Feeling sidelined does not neccesarily mean that they are isolated materially or intellectually. A surprisingly high number of the Da’esh supporters are doctors or engineers. The leading role of convertites, such as Pierre Vogel, Bernhard Falk, Sven Lau and Dennis Cuspert within the German radical Islamic movement proves, that not even the migratory background is a neccessity.
It is easier to predict that someone will radicalize, than to predict the direction of the radicalization. This is rooted mainly in the milieu surrounding this person. Thus the “worried” saxon citizen, setting fire on a refugee home and the young man, blowing himself up in a car to destroy an Iraqi military convoy in Al-Anbar are fruit of the same tree.
The genuinely western islamists are being used by Da’esh (and other terrorist groups) mainly for propaganda and psychological warfare purposes. On the real battlefield they are usually no match for their comrades who grew up in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Chechnia or other places and who have yearlong experience in war and hardship. Cultural shocks occur regularily and when the young people from the European cities arrive in the Islamic State, it is much less of a paradise than they were promised. This could have been observed similarily when the German left wing terrorists of the RAF went to the PLO to get trained in the seventies. The Germans who came from middle class backgrounds were not suited for the “usual” class warfare and they developed the Urban Guerilla Concept.
The use of homegrown “western” djihadists for the attacks in their countries of origin, as recently in Paris and Brussels, is part of that strategy. Being familiar with the language and culture and also the increased international mobility when carrying an EU passport, are crucial elements. The shock effect that is achieved is even bigger, when the attacker comes right out of the centre of society than being an attacker from outside. This leads to suspicion, polarization and generalizations and provokes self-destruction mechanisms within liberal societies. The success of right wing anti-islam movements and violence in many European countries is a result of that.
The French Revolution triggered political and institutional shifts in other European countries too, but in very different manner. The most commonly known example are the Prussian reforms. King Friedrich Wilhelm III. reckognized after being defeated at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, that Prussia would have to change significantly, if it wanted to face Napoleon. The attractive power of the liberal and bourgeois ideals had to be answered to prevent subversive tendencies within Prussia and to establish the country among the great European powers.
This “top-down revolution” was co-ordinated by Baron vom Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg. Its main focus was on improving the administration, the military (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Clausewitz are to be highlighted here) and education (Wilhelm von Humboldt) and paved the way for the Prussian (and later German) dominance on the European mainland from the defeat of Napoleon until the Great War.
The Islamic terrorism by Al-Qaida, Da’esh and others also led to institutional change in the “Western” societies. Reacting to several terror attacks since 9/11/2001, many countries strengthened their security infrastructure, restricted civil rights to meet a strong need for more security that was sensed by large parts of the population.
The attention that the terrorist threat receives in the “West” is imbalanced with its real imminence. The numbers of attacks and victims have shrunk significantly,due to the end of the armed fight of the IRA,ETA and most left wing groups during the nineties. The are far less attacks, but they are responsible for more casualties individually,but the total amount is far behind what we saw during the seventies and eighties.
Today, many miss out, that the French Revolution was a totalitarian movement too. The era of the so-called “reign of terror” is known, but it is seldomly recognized, that these tendencies are rooted in the very beginning of the Revolution. Rousseau, the most important thinker of the French Revolution wrote:
“In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free“
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract” ,1762
This totalitarian claim was fully executed within France during the “reign of terror” and left between 35,000 and 40,000 people dead under the accusation of being “counter-revolutionaries” and the guillotine became the symbol of the Revolution. Today, Da’esh exercises a similar culture of fear, death and persecution within the areas of its control.
The Revolution washed away the principle of the separation between domestic and foreign policy, that was in place since the Westphalian Peace, ending Thirty Years War and the principle of the “raison d’État” was replaced by the universality of the Revolution. The National Convention decided to provide military to support all revolutionary movements around the globe and all monarchies became enemies by definition. Just as Soviet socialism in the twentieth century,the Ottoman Empire one hundred years earlier or in its conception the “Islamic State” nowadays, the Revolution was unable to peacefully co-exist with any other political or religious order.
In both cases single people who came to power in the struggles of change claimed to personify and execute a divine or popular will. There is a big difference between the French and the American Revolution, that had happened just a couple of years earlier. The Americans came from a different philosophical direction with influences from Montesquieu,Hume and others. They established a system of individual rights and a fixed political system underlying checks and balances. In France they sought a method to institute the general will. After this method has proven to be unfit, the solution was found again in the writings of Rousseau. He suggested the installation of a “Sovereign”. This happened as Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself to be the French Emperor. Just like Napoleon, the self proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi derives his legitimation from his charisma and military success and both perceive themselves as the embodyment of a higher will.
Due to the exclusivism of both movements, they were instantly isolated by the international system and a total war to determine which world order would prevail was/is unevitable. This can be proven in comparison with Saudi Arabia, whose domestic political system is essentially the same as ISIS’ in regard of human rights. But the Kingdom of the Saud family does not claim the universality of its theocracy. In foreign policy they “play by the rules” and thus became an important ally of the “West” in the Middle East. It has become an anachronism of the old westphalian system with complete autonomy in domestic affairs and prevailing raison d’État in foreign policy. This is unique within the modern system of international courts and the concept of the ”responsibility to protect”.
What can we learn from the European past for the future of the Middle East?
Sadly, there is no comforting answer to that. The similarities of both phenomenons are astonishing. In both cases the claim of exclusivity lead to unavoidable confrontation with the established powers and the installment of a domestic terror regime. But in contrast to the success that the French Army achieved in the Revolutionary Wars, it is impossible that Da’esh could establish a worldwide or even larger caliphate in the foreseeable future. On the one hand side the economy and military of the self-proclaimed Islamic State is simply too weak, on the other hand it has shown that radical Islam does simply not attract a significant share of people outside of war torn or poorly educated societies. They can spread fear, but they can’t take over by themselves.
This is connected to the main difference between the two: The ideology of Da’esh is fundamentally incompatible with human dignity, whereas the ideas of the French Revolution are based in the concepts of liberté, egalité and fraternite (find out more on how to set up a moral basis for a political system in my last article). In 1789 they made the mistake to constrain and brutally enforce a legal obligation out of a moral obligation. This mistake was widely (although not universally) corrected and today the values of the Revolution are to be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and — at least pro forma- in the constitutions of most countries. Although not being enforced everywhere, this set of values frames the global discourse on the matter.
For Da’esh there are two possible future scenarios: Either they stick to their absolutist claim and finally loose all their territories and may stay a terrorist group in a couple of countries, just as al-Qaida today; or they get rid of the claim. This would mean putting an end to committing international terror attacks and establishing themselves as a legal political force. Unfortunately it is very probable, that other organizations will jump in committing international terror attacks and the people under Da’eshs control will keep suffering. But in this scenario, they might become a political party (probably after another name change) in several countries and be accepted by the international community.
