MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Daesh is known for many things; its brutality, its utopian vision of a caliphate, its colonization of various cities in order to make said caliphate, and, perhaps most importantly, its cultural production. It is important to note that its culture is not the sole one of Middle Eastern terrorist movements. In fact, there are many terrorist and non-terrorist movements within the Middle East with their own cultural visions that vary widely from both each other and Daesh. This paper will examine the way Daesh, also known as ISIS, creates and produces a specific cultural aesthetic that appeals to a certain population of predominantly young people not only in MENA but all over the world. They utilize language—specifically Classical Arabic and its religious and political associations—social media as a recruitment tool, young men and women—particularly attractive young men and women—in ISIS recruitment videos. They also use clothing as a way to delineate themselves from others and social conduct as a mode of piety. While this in no way suggests that all terrorist organizations within MENA share the same culture, indeed, Daesh’s aesthetic of culture is unique, it is an important and heretofore scarcely examined field of study. In order to understand Daesh in its entirety, one needs to examine the culture surrounding the group and the cultural aesthetic that they create. I chose this topic because this is an area of study which has the potential to yield new insights into the group and its political philosophy. In order to fully understand Daesh, one needs to examine the group through as many lenses as possible, not just through the fields of security studies and terrorism studies. Indeed, it is important to fully understand an enemy if one is to defeat them.