Capturing the Islamic State’s Words: Manichaeism, Ideology, Propaganda

April 2018 No Comments

Capturing the Islamic State’s Words: Manichaeism, Ideology, Propaganda

Speaker: Benraad, M. (University of Leiden)

Date: 20 April 2018

Speaker Session Preview

SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. Myriam Benraad (University of Leiden) as a part of its SMA CENTCOM Speaker Series. During this session, Dr. Benraad presented the main points of her research, which focuses on capturing the Islamic State’s words and determining why individuals become radicalized. To begin the presentation, she introduced a key facet of the Islamic State’s ideology, which is that there are “two antithetical and irreconcilable camps: the camp of Islam, endowed with a new “caliphate,” and the camp of disbelief, namely the Western and allied military coalition.” Dr. Benraad also discussed the main features of Islamic propaganda and discourse. She then identified three key dualities that the Islamic State emphasizes: East versus West (or we vs. them), civilization versus barbarism, and crusade versus jihad. As she discussed each duality, Dr. Benraad displayed images to reflect the relevant concepts.