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Utopian caliphate life lures Muslims to join IS

In this photo made from the footage taken from Russian Defense Ministry official web site and provided Wednesday an aerial image shows cruise missile strike on a local ISIS headquarters in Syria

Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, December 12, 2015

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Utopian caliphate life lures Muslims to join IS In this photo made from the footage taken from Russian Defense Ministry official web site and provided Wednesday an aerial image shows cruise missile strike on a local ISIS headquarters in Syria. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP) (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

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span class="inline inline-center">In this photo made from the footage taken from Russian Defense Ministry official web site and provided Wednesday an aerial image shows cruise missile strike on a local ISIS headquarters in Syria. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

The radical Islamic State (IS) group portrays a utopian caliphate life through social media to disseminate its ideology among Muslims, an expert said on Friday.

Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) director Sidney Jones said people were attracted by the group'€™s strategic propaganda.

She countered the view that the dissemination of messages by the group amounted to pure brainwashing. "There are many videos about how normal IS [members] live in Syria," Jones told thejakartapost.com.

As an example, Jones referred to the uploading of a video by IS during Idul Adha, the Islamic Day of Sacrifice, which depicts its members getting together to distribute meat in the city.

According to Jones, social media was very important to IS as it encouraged individuals who support the ideology to disseminate the propaganda by sending video links through their social media accounts, such as Twitter.

In Indonesia, too, she added, various media wings of IS disseminated such propaganda, usually by re-making the videos or audio statements in Indonesian and spreading links through websites, Twitter or Facebook.

"With only one link, you can raise hundreds of supporters," Jones said.

A report by the Qulliam Foundation '€“ a counter-extremism think-tank in the UK '€“ concluded that aside from championing military-themed events, brutality and jihad, IS'€™ media strategy prioritized the demonstration of a caliphate utopia to attract potential recruits.

Assessing 892 messages disseminated through Twitter between July 17 and Aug. 15, Qulliam Foundation found that IS produced an average of 38 propaganda messages a day, 52 percent of which depicted civilian life in IS-held territories.

Through their propagandistic depiction of everyday life, IS lured potential recruits by promising a flourishing economic life under IS, cheerful social relations in the caliphate, country life with abundant wildlife, unwavering law and order based on a stern sharia and pro-active pristine religious fervor in its governance.

Separately, Indonesian University (UI) Master of Terrorism Studies alumnus Adhe Wibisono said that an identity crisis felt by Muslim minorities in Western countries has become one of main reasons why Western people were relatively easy to convince to join radical groups.

According to Adhe, IS massively recruited potential foreign terrorist fighters through social media in the United States and European countries, targeting those who had lost their identity because of the pressure of being in the minority with IS promises.

"Those who often felt social pressure in school or their communities [by being minority Muslims] are looking for their identity by joining IS," said Adhe.

Adhe took as an example Jihadi John '€“ an infamous British-Arab member of IS known for his beheading of IS captives '€“ who had grown up in the UK and previously worked as one of the best employees in an IT company in Kuwait.

"He changed from a person who embraced multiculturalism and moderate religious life to [a die-hard] IS member," Adhe added.

However, Adhe said that recruitment through social media did not necessarily happen in countries with a majority of Muslims such as Indonesia. Recruitment through face-to-face conversations was still effective and the radicalization process was still happening in various pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) in the country.

"But now it's not about pesantren only. Nowadays, people are recruited even in Koran recitals at mosques or by whoever is attracted to IS around them," Jones added, suggesting that the recruiters were usually close relatives.

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