Marco Pura December
3, 2014
Writing a Group Blog on ISIS
This semester our group researched and wrote about the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a militant Islamist organization currently
controlling large swathes of Iraq and Syria. In our first blog post, we covered
the group’s origin in Al Qaeda’s Iraqi branch and the rubble of the Syrian revolt
against Bashar al-Assad, its Salafist ideology, and the immediate and dire security
threat it poses to the region and their brutal treatment of anyone not deemed
sufficiently Islamic. In the second blog
post, we analyzed women’s role in the organization and how women members they
receive recognition and a sense of identity, even if it is one that is rooted
in a deeply misogynistic ideology. The third blog post analyzed ISIS’ financial
organization, their seizure of Iraqi and Syrian army equipment, and sources of revenue:
bank vaults, extortion and oil sales. In the final group blog post, the group
discussed ISIS’s cunning use of social media and video propaganda to attract
angry young Muslims from around the world, and their use of kidnapping and
extortion to both fund their activities and to intimidate and control
populations.
The group conducted research by divvying up the selected
facet for a post (for example, ISIS and women) into smaller topics. Members of
the group would each find a few articles, do analysis on them and contribute
that information to the group’s pool of research. Some posts would have fewer
authors than others; for example I wrote the first post, but the articles and
analysis came from the group. Having access to Google Docs allowed us to share
work easily and communicate. Working in a group allows for greater depth in
both research and analysis as each member can focus specifically on one facet
of a complicated issue like ISIS.
I gained a lot of familiarity not only with ISIS as an
organization but the geopolitics of the Middle East. Understanding the logic
behind the brutality of ISIS is important as it allows us to consider the
complexity of the situation in Iraq and Syria. I think our blog posts do a
reasonable job of cutting through media sensationalism regarding ISIS’s crimes
(which are indeed horrible), and instead focus on their strengths and
weaknesses. If the international community is to deal with ISIS they need to
understand them not in a context of a “clash of civilizations” but in the
context of the complex history of the region. Working in a group has taught me
some valuable lessons in organization of tasks and time management. I found
that the method of divvying up research and analysis to multiple people but
having one person format and post was more efficient in getting the post done
and in making the post coherent. On the last blog post regarding ISIS and
propaganda the members of the group each contributed one paragraph, and the
result was a post that was disjointed with clashing writing styles. Different
people can conduct research but to yield a composition one person is
preferable. A blog may not be an essay, but it still needs to have one voice to
make it easy for the reader to absorb its information.
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