Blood-red: the material network that is IS is not best understood by parsing its religious discourse. Flickr / Karl-Ludwig Poggemann. Some rights reserved.
The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Yet it is not so much history that repeats itself this time around, as Karl Marx wrote in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, but rather its deciphering, as readings of Islamic State (IS) are rehashing all-too-familiar perspectives.
After al-Qaeda stormed on to the world stage that fateful Tuesday in September 2001, analyses systematically highlighted its religious fundamentalism, as well as its irrationality and barbarity. Amid emotional commentary, ideologically amplified, the study of al-Qaeda remained for a long time confined to journalism and policy planning. When academe fought its way in, it overwhelmingly erred too, with neo-Orientalist interpretations of an organisation for whom Islam not only was deployed instrumentally but always came second to its political and martial agenda.
