Dear so-called 'Islamic State': You are the real devil-worshippers

By: Lamis Andoni

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Comment: The emergence of the IS group has benefitted the Arab world's oppressive regimes; without IS, revolutionary fervour would still be spreading.

Not long ago, we lived under the mercy of authoritarian regimes and yearned to break free of them.

Now we live under the mercy of authoritarian regimes and the despicable so-called "Islamic State group", which has no cause other than to take joy in decapitating people and slaughtering our dreams.

You boast of immolating people such as Moaz al-Kassasbeh, of taking women slaves, and of beheading Copts. This is not just criminal. You are cowards devoid of a conscience and devoid of morality, who kill, torment and give all kinds of pretexts for tyrants to stifle us. You have no religion, so stop claiming and pretending otherwise.

We have always said Israel was the greatest invention of colonialism, meant to tear the Arab world apart. But you, in the Islamic State criminal gang, and your backers, financiers and supporters, you are the greatest gift possible to Israel, the colonial powers and the authoritarian regimes.

You are the most potent instrument in enabling the survival of oppressive regimes, and the most important pretext to legitimise Western military and political intervention. You are always ready to cover up the crimes of the regimes and Israel and of racism against Arabs and Muslims.

I do not know who you are, because you hide your deformed minds behind your masked faces. The authoritarian regimes have long used suspect religious teachings to shore up their control and make people subservient, and you are the result.

It is as if your leaders were hired by a PR company specifically established to terrorise Arabs and Muslims and incite racism against us.

From the outset, the goal of our oppressive rulers was always to restrict freedom and remove any sense of justice in hearts and minds, leaving behind only a nihilistic instinct for revenge and savagery - which you have become incarnate, satisfying only the injustice created by the powerful to maintain control.

Obscene productions 
The horror films you produce do not reflect any real political or religious cause. They are little more than snuff movies - the cheap (morally and financially), sadistic productions in which criminals engage in torture and murder to fulfill a sick desire, which are then sold to viewers as sick as the producers, who enjoy seeing the victims' last horrific moments.

Not only are you no different in any way, but you are even more obscene because you claim to have a cause and you speak in the name of religion. Your latest snuff movie - with the Coptic hostages in Libya - shows off your murderous creativity, ruining the beautiful image of the sea in our heads because, now, we can only associate it with the faces of the desperate workers looking for work to support their families. You made an otherwise romantic beach the stage of your obsessively bloody rituals.

I do not know the people I am addressing. But to all those who support this syndicate of murderous thugs and their like, are these not barbaric rituals?

Religious zealots call everything they do not understand "devil worship", even music and dance, in an expression of their backwardness and repressed desires. But you in the Islamic State group are the real devil-worshippers.

Can the Islamic State group drag Jordan into a destablising war? Read Lamis Andoni's commentary here

Some might ask: what about the US and Israeli crimes that leave people burned to death? What about the brutality of the regimes? These questions are not acceptable if they are meant to downplay the crimes of the Islamic State group, and the answer is simple - this bunch of cowardly gangsters hiding behind their masks and video tapes are no less criminal than the devastating wars waged by Israel and the US.

But the crimes of the Islamic State group have a different quality. They are meant to hijack our voice against colonialism, Israel and repression, and to distort and discredit every freedom fighter in our past, present and future. The self-proclaimed Islamic State spares the forces of injustice a lot of effort and millions of dollars that they would otherwise have to spend to gag people, outlaw dissent and justify their own massacres.

You are robbing us of our humanity. If colonial wars rely on dehumanising people in order to legitimise and facilitate slaughter and plunder them, then you are doing the same job with a brilliant efficiency. 

It is as if those leading you were hired by a PR company specifically established to terrorise Arabs and Muslims and incite racism against us, as though the incitement that was already there was not enough.

I do not know who you are, but those who lead, control, manipulate and exploit you are nothing but sadistic killers who know exactly what they are doing. They have made you a gang of mercenaries and contract killers. 

My heart goes out to every mother who has lost a son, turned into a murderer, and my soul aches for the fathers whose children have perished at their hands.