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During the initial phase of ISIS rule, locals told me they disliked the excesses of the Islamic State, but some were pleased that the corruption and chaos of rebel rule had ended. One businessman from Raqqa who now lives in Turkey told me that, though he hated the group, it was easier to ship goods through ISIS territory because the checkpoints did not take bribes like other rebel groups. The group was also pragmatic in running municipal services in Raqqa, keeping expert employees in position, including in government-run services such as the phone network, but making clear they now work for the Islamic State. Schoolteachers are allowed to continue to teach, but with an altered curriculum that has had subjects such as chemistry and French removed and Islamic studies added. A junior doctor in her twenties, who went into exile in September, told me how the department heads in her hospital in Raqqa had been replaced by Islamic State men—complete with titles such as Emir of General Medicine. Female doctors were now only allowed to treat female patients, and in full niqab. “How am I meant to operate in black gloves and with barely my eyes showing?” the doctor asked me.
But it quickly became clear that ISIS’s ability to maintain power depended overwhelmingly on outright repression. Although the beheadings of two American journalists and one aid worker, and two British aid workers have caught headlines, far more Syrians and Iraqis have been murdered by the group and scores have been tortured. Abu Hamza, a Syrian defector from ISIS’s intelligence services, told me that the will of the state is primarily imposed by security services, just as it was under the Baathist regime in Iraq and continues to be in Assad’s Syria. ISIS’s security forces, he said, are a mix of nationalities but include enough Syrians who know others’ pasts. “They look at all the threats to Islamic State, from Bashar al-Assad to America and the other rebels—but their number one enemy is the [mainstream] rebels,” he said.
full: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/09/how-isis-rules/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
