Chapter Eight

Shock and Awe: Performativity, Machismo and ISIS

The members of ISIS did not try to avoid a bad reputation. They did not give the impression of being a group willing to negotiate, or one that anyone would want to negotiate with. They did not give an image of being particularly reasonable or approachable. Rather, they communicated a visceral form of terror, a series of intimidating stunts and extreme acts of revenge. At the time of writing, it is really too early to tell what the effects of this political violence will ultimately be. But so far it is clear enough that ‘public relations’ is being used as a form of warfare in itself, rather than simply image-management.

Looking at the ISIS beheadings as a form of performed violence, we can understand these stunts as part of a media discourse between the US/UK and ISIS, as part of a related competition regarding ideas of masculinity and sexual superiority. By ‘performed violence’ (taking into account Juris’ ideas about performativity in particular), it is understood that these beheadings are instances of violence in which their perpetrators communicate and “seek to produce social transformation by staging symbolic rituals of confrontation” (Juris, 2005). This understanding is in line with Jabri’s understanding of violence as a means of political communication, resulting from its social and cultural context (Jabri, 1996), and Butler’s ideas about performativity in relation to sexual identity, or gender as performed and communicated through violence, media and other means (Butler, 2009). Furthermore, the ISIS beheadings are part of a wider war of images (Mitchell, 2011), as well as a war of masculinities (Gentry and Sjoberg, 2007), and can be better understood as part of a tit-for-tat struggle between ISIS and the UK/US, using media to communicate competitive ideas of sexual superiority. By considering the ISIS beheadings through media and sexual discourse, their meaning and even cause – including the role of the US and UK in provoking such public political violence – can be better understood.

A War of Images

The ISIS beheadings of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Alan Henning, David Haines and others were clearly intended to shock, and were intended as acts of revenge and deterrence regarding recent and planned US and allied foreign policy against the organisation. As ISIS communicated, through videos in which captives were made to recite monologues written by ISIS before being publicly beheaded, the killings were in response to Western foreign policy, and were communicated so that the people and leaders of those countries would be aware of the implications of further military action against ISIS.

I am Alan Henning. Because of our parliament’s decision to attack the Islamic State, I – as a member of the British public – will now pay the price for that decision. (Alan Henning, captive, speaking for ISIS; qtd. in Cobain et al, 04/10/14)

You entered voluntarily into a coalition with the United States against the Islamic State, just as your predecessor Tony Blair did, following a trend amongst our British prime ministers who can’t find the courage to say no to the Americans. Unfortunately, it is we the British public that in the end will pay the price for our parliament’s selfish decisions. (David Haines, captive, speaking for ISIS in A Message to the Allies of America; qtd. in Cobain et al, 04/10/14)

The blood of David Haines was on your hands, Cameron. Alan Henning will also be slaughtered, but his blood is on the hands of the British parliament. (Anonymous member of ISIS in A Message to the Allies of America; qtd. in Haberman, 13/09/14)

As well as specifically reacting to recent foreign policy against ISIS, these filmed beheadings were the latest assault in a “war of images” (Mitchell, 2011) between the US/UK, and their enemies in the War on Terror - originally Al Qaeda, and now ISIS. As Mitchell explained in Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present (2011), the US ‘cloned terror’ with its War on Terror, insofar as its efforts at counter-terrorism led to increased attacks and recruitment to terrorist organisations, parallel to a virtual ‘cloning’ of terror through the technological reproduction of images and other media depicting terror. Although Mitchell’s insights are not concerned with ISIS, given that his book was published in 2011, his ideas are clearly relevant. It would seem that ISIS has simply fought back, in this ‘war of images’, by creating reciprocal propaganda videos and images that perpetuate terror, as well as committing terrorism in the physical sense through their continued combat and occupation of parts of Iraq and Syria. In the War on Terror, then, images are the arsenal and acquisitions of conflict as well as simply representations of more traditional, physical warfare.

This use of propaganda is rooted in a long-standing tactic of revolutionary groups – at times called ‘propaganda of the deed’ – in which violence and communication are merged to maximum effect. That tactic uses symbols (from religion or elsewhere) along with violence, and communicates a message with maximum exposure, emotional effect and resonance. In so doing, it has the potential to be extremely effective, as well as merely damaging.

What is interesting about ISIS’s use of propaganda and violence, however, is not only that they have employed age-old tactics of propaganda and public violence in order to communicate a political message, but the context in which they have done so. One way of interpreting ISIS’s use of filmed beheadings is as a reaction to previous similar methods of media and violence by the states they are fighting. Both the US and the UK governments and media have dehumanised and humiliated their enemies in the War on Terror through media as well as public violence, not to mention conventional warfare itself. An example of Western ‘assaults’ in the ‘war of images’ is the public humiliation of Saddam Hussein upon his capture in Iraq, with headlines such as: “Caught like a rat” (Anchorage Daily News, 15/12/03); “Saddam’s long fall: Former ruler goes from ostentatious palaces to dirty holes in the ground” (Anniston Star, 15/12/03); and “Diligent hunters track down prey” (Washington Times, 15/12/03). These headlines were accompanied by pictures of Hussein looking disheveled, disorientated and in captivity – as well as his eventual death by public execution, as celebrated by the US especially. Osama bin Laden received similar treatment in the media, especially when he was killed, with headlines such as “U.S. forces gun down 9/11 mastermind” (Daily Courier, 02/05/11) and pictures emerging (although later confirmed to be fake) of a bloody corpse.

The photographs taken at Abu Ghraib, meanwhile, while not intentionally distributed by the government or military, nevertheless had a damaging effect when they were leaked, in that the pictures were aggravating not only to those in Al Qaeda and affiliated organisations, but also to the general (and particularly Muslim) public. They were not ‘state propaganda’ by any means, but their effect was still an assault comparable to other degrading and damaging images from the War on Terror.

A War of Masculinities

As well as currency in a ‘war of images’, these pictures and films signified assaults in another level of the conflict, a war of masculinities, as Sjoberg and Gentry put it (2007), whereby the US and its enemies (both Al Qaeda and now ISIS) compete with their ideas and manifestations of masculinity, to prove themselves more superior than the other.

The relationship between the United States and Iraq had been framed as a competition between masculinities for more than a decade; each government told stories of emasculation of the other (Elshtain 1992b). Each government held standards of masculinity which the other did not meet. The United States relied on ‘the contrast between the tough but tender and technologically sophisticated Western man and the hypermacho Arab villain from an inferior civilisation’ (Niva 1998: 119) while the Iraqi government challenged the virility of this new, tender American masculinity. When masculinities compete, a hegemonic masculinity dominates subordinated masculinities. (Connell 1995) (Sjoberg and Gentry, 2007,206)

This use of emasculation for the undermining of political power, on both sides, is part of a wider use of dehumanisation for that purpose. To reduce a person to something less than human, and to portray a person in sexual terms in order to dehumanise them, is a way to discredit not only an individual, but the cause and even civilisation that that person is seen to represent. The use of beheadings by ISIS can be interpreted, in this context, as a way of performing Iraqi ideals of masculinity (as tough, brave warriors), to contrast with and undermine those Western ideals of “tough but tender” (Niva, 1998, 119) and polite masculinity. By using such brutal and visceral methods of violence against Western men as the beheadings, ISIS asserted its masculinity as superior to Western masculinity, in order to express its supposed dominance in political and cultural terms more generally.

By considering ISIS’s use of beheadings in the context of the ‘war of images’ as well as the ‘war of masculinities’, its showy, sensationalist violence can be understood as an effort to defeat the US and its allies in a propaganda war. By using gendered narratives of competing masculinities (through visceral, humiliating violence against Western men), and by communicating those narratives through film and other imagery (as well as the performed violence itself), ISIS’s members are projecting an image of their organisation and their cause as superior to their Western enemies. In so doing, they are attempting to intimidate and dehumanise their enemy, as well as appealing to the people of those countries to put pressure on their leaders to abandon certain foreign policies (so communicating a more specific political message). The beheadings are at once a means of deterrence and revenge, and a simple assertion of dominance, using gendered narratives and performance.

So does this use of violent PR (to put it mildly) work? Having explored the meaning of ISIS’s propaganda, it would seem that it ‘works’ in the sense that it is a counter-offensive against British and American media portrayals of prominent leaders such as Hussein and bin Laden, and a physical assault against Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. It ‘works’ in the sense that people have seen these videos and joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq. And it has worked in that these videos have intimidated people. But have they won the war? Or have they merely announced that it has begun?

I would argue the latter, though it is really too early to tell. Although far more planned and sophisticated than the Boston Bombings and murder of Lee Rigby, ISIS’s public-relations offensive seems to share those characteristics of being intimidating but not necessarily indicative of any wider success. While ISIS may have recruited many people through their messages, they have probably alienated just as many, including people who may have been sympathetic to the cause without the gratuitous and sadistic violence. The problem with violence as communication, and communication as violence, is that while terror is effective at terrorising, it is not necessarily effective at much else.

As already mentioned, the communication of violence and terrorism in the media often reaffirms public support for Western governments (when it threatens those Western countries), rather than inspiring division within them. ISIS’s PR campaign may have ultimately helped the British and American governments enlist support, both for stricter security measures domestically, and more conflict internationally. Crucially, this has a negative effect on other dissenting groups, because they then have to deal with these stricter laws and a less tolerant atmosphere as a result. So whether ISIS’s version of public relations works in its favour or not, it certainly doesn’t help other dissenting groups.

While a group like Occupy may not think that the workings of ISIS relate to its own struggle, since they certainly have little in common in the way of political ideas, it is foolish not to pay attention to the ways that a movement like ISIS can and does change the political landscape, and the way the public (and government) view all anti-establishment groups, no matter how different they are.