The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a ghost springing out of the dark tunnels of history. It is bombing all over. It doesn't know any bounds. It is slaughtering Muslims and non-Muslims. It is sending suicide bombers to the Shiites in Beirut and the Sunnis in Ankara. It is slaughtering Arabs and Kurds. It has devoted itself to destroy. It is pursuing evil, not goodness. It acts upon the ideology of disbelief that deeply twists theology. This ideology does not have any norms or ethics, or isn't based on any sociology. Yet, it has a political base. ISIL is a political phenomenon without sociology. It is a political situation that swallows sociology. It fully turns politics into a suicide. Therefore, ISIL is a political suicide. When suicide is mentioned, we all assume it to be a personal attitude. But, in this case it is a group suicide, in which suicide is turning into a style. Suicide has turned into a group activity.
Political suicide is a trauma that certain political conditions produce. It is a trauma of anomic political conditions. How do anomic political conditions come about? They emerge at times political orders collapse and are replaced by political crises. This is the situation in the Islamic world. Especially in the Iraq and Syria where ISIL has presence. Political regimes have collapsed and political voids have emerged. Thus, this leads to great crises and depressions.
For example, close to 1 million people died with the U.S.'s intervention of Iraq. It is said that 300,000 people have been slaughtered as a result of the Assad regime in Syria. Zarqawi, activated his project with the Baath regime. Because this atmosphere is the result of collapsed politics, voids and crises. As a matter of fact, they were products of these conditions.
Political suicide is a product of political anomy. Political anomy is the situation in which the individual cannot understand what kind of political behavior to adopt. It is the situation in which political chaos pervades into our souls. The political path and mind are lost. The last analysis does not allow political anomy and political systems to renew themselves, to change or to rebuild. It only produces concussions. The masses, intellects and groups do not have the chance to replace the collapsed regimes. The Arab Spring was probably an opportunity to overcome this political anomaly. Because, political anomy could have been overcome with new political actors and new ideas. The Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) was an important opportunity in this sense, as it was based on a political mind. It had political principles and norms. It wanted to do, to revive and restore. Upon blocking the Arab Spring, a wall was built before alternative movements that exceeded political anomy. Toppling Mohamed Morsi was a concrete example for this. Western powers assumed that political anomy would exceed with old regimes gaining strength.
For this very reason, the U.S. and European Union countries ran to Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. They believed that this anomy would be outpaced with more coups and further oppression. They overlooked the whole region shattering in order to protect the convulsed status quo of Israel. The masses that were hopeful of a new political mind, found themselves in further chaos, emptiness and uncertainty. Political suicide stood as the most important option before them. ISIL is a product of this. It is a political suicide experience that comes with the tremors birthed from political anomy. Therefore, it is only a terminator. It is an attempt to terminate others through their own termination. To establish, to do, to invite, to save, to enlighten, to revive and to improve.... It is foreign to all these. Nilüfer Göle is aware of this, as she says, “They don't propose a civilization, their sole attempt is to demolish.”
Political suicide appears competently in ISIL. Yet, as time passes, it is spreading like a plague. Al-Qaida, Boko Haram, Al-Murabitun, Sinai… All Islamic regions are turning into suicide fields. Once again it came about in Bamako, the capital of Mali. A group named Al-Murabitun claimed responsibility for the attack. New places, new suicides and new organizations... It is a time in which politics seek refuge in death...
