Daeş. Viaggio nella banalità del male, by Sara Montinaro

“It all started when I was on Erasmus in Turkey 10 years ago. At that time I visited Syria, it was January 2011, only two months before the start of the revolution… Then I went back to Turkey and I remember that in 2014, while I was living in Ankara, foreign fighters were already being discussed. In Italy, on the other hand, there was no mention of them at all”.
“Daeş. Journey into the Banality of Evil” is a dense, necessary account of the development of Isis, from its deep-rooted origins to the military defeat in 2019 marked by the Battle of Baghouz. From
the meticulously documented analysis, the centrality of women in the activities of the group
emerges sharply. The book reveals how, from proselytising, to propaganda, to education, the
thousands of often neglected women of the Caliphate played an active and fundamental role in the organisation. Even today, imprisoned in the jihad families camps between Syria and Iraq, they continue to mobilize, fueling the hope of the Islamic State’s imminent resurgence.
The author is Sara Montinaro, an activist specialising in human rights violations, immigration and international humanitarian law. Sara Montinaro has extensive knowledge of the area. First through study, then through activism and work, she has worked on various projects in Turkey, Syria, Iraqi Kurdistan and Rojava. While Isis was taking shape, organising itself militarily and administratively, recruiting followers and expanding its borders, Sara Montinaro participated in caravans and humanitarian missions in those very areas.
“I saw and experienced the changes that were taking place”, she tells me, and it was by
experiencing the dynamics of the area up close that she felt the need to tell. Telling, on the one
hand to understand for herself what was happening, and on the other to shed light on a sketchy and superficial public debate. In particular, there was little talk of phenomena such as foreign fighters, women and men who had arrived in Syria mainly from Europe, Africa and the Near East
to devote their existence to the Islamic State.
It is precisely they, the undiscovered foreign fighters, who give shape to Sara Montinaro’s story.
The author skilfully interweaves information gathered from the field, testimonies and interviews and provides readers with an extremely detailed reconstruction of Daeş.
A chapter with a historical background introduces the genealogy of Isis, laying the geopolitical and
ideological foundations that led to the formation of the retrospective utopia of a Caliphate for the
Islamic umma. Opening with the Great Fitna, the initial split between Sunnis and Shiites (the
former supporters of Abu Bakr, the prophet’s trusted companion, as the community’s leader, while the latter in favour of Ali, Muhammad’s cousin, as his successor), Sara Montinaro does not fail to emphasise the numerous schools and currents that make the subject matter certainly more complex, but above all more comprehensive and comprehensible. Continuing in the historical
framework, there follows the progressive identification of the Caliphate with a “unique and divine Islamic State that would reunite the Sunni umma”. In other words, in the words of Mustafà, a
Syrian imam interviewed by Sara Montinaro, the progressive affirmation of “an Islamic empire” for the community of the faithful to be achieved through holy war. Thus, by tracing the development and ramifications of Islam, the book comes to explain jihadist fundamentalism. The jihadists, most radical among the Salafists (a school of thought whose approach is characterised by a strict application of the original precepts), advocate armed struggle to affirm the Islam of the origins, uncontaminated and uncompromised by Western influences. Complementing the theoretical explanation, the author describes how summits of fundamentalist organisations such as al-Qaeda
merged into the self-styled Islamic State, shaping its structure and strategies. However, the
uniqueness of Isis, those differences to other organisations that have made it the most feared
threat to the international community, are also made explicit.
Among these differences, one characteristic of the Islamic State is its capillary administrative
structure. The second chapter delves into the organisation of Isis, offering a detailed x-ray of its
bureaucratic-military division and hierarchy. The diwan (departments) of the administrative
apparatus are listed and analysed, from the Diwan of the Shura, the highest advisory body, to
those of propaganda, war, foreigners… “Within the apparatus of the Islamic State there are
different compartments, superimposed one on the other, which create a capillary system of control
over each official”. A real parastatal structure, financially autonomous (also thanks to external
complicity and relations with the legal economy) and endowed with a welfare system. A free
healthcare system, a monopoly on basic services and an ad hoc education system have made Isis
pervasive and indispensable to the population. Also disconcerting is the focus dedicated on
children, the “puppies of the Caliphate: children, male, between the ages of eleven and eighteen,
trained to become the next generation of jihadists”.
The third chapter is the heart of the book and addresses a further peculiarity of Isis: “The Islamic State was the first jihadist organization (apart from the Chechens…) to identify women as subjects to be intercepted and included in the political project”. In this part of the book, Sara Montinaro
focuses on the role of women in Isis, the so-called brides of Daeş: mothers of the Caliphate’s cubs, wives of fighters and widows of jihadist martyrs.
The author, however, goes beyond this narrative that is as widespread as it is generic. “For me, it
was a natural need to give voice to this part of the story, on the one hand to overcome anachronistic stereotypes, and on the other hand with the aim of providing the tools to be able to
better interpret this new phenomenon”. Women, Syrian and Iraqi, but also Italian, French and German, have carved out roles of power within the organisation. Recruiters of followers, skilled in the use of propaganda and social media, trainers, and an integral part of the political structure in
the women’s brigades. “I never expected to discover what I found in the field: some revealed to me that women, especially foreigners, were even crueller than men". When the author embarks on the dramatic tale of the Yazidis, the women are immediately transformed from executioners to victims. “Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls were kidnapped: some sold as slaves, others became spoils of war. […] Considered chattels, they were imprisoned in homes and held in sexual slavery”.
Following the atrocious pattern seen again and again in attempts at ethnic cleansing, rape became the most brutal weapon of war. The chapter is accompanied by testimonies of European women who left to join Isis, now in the Al-Hol and Roj camps controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Many declare that they have repented. A few lines later, in pages renamed “Diary Pages” by the author, we read: “Most of them have not really repented. And the crimes they committed, even if not directly but still supporting the whole mechanism and system, are chilling”.
The last chapter contains valuable reflections on what remains of the Islamic State today. “In the course of the interviews I conducted […] it emerges very clearly that something will happen. Isis is not dead and will come back stronger than before”. Certainly not a happy ending. On the other hand, as Sara Montinaro states in her diary pages: “our society must take responsibility for having created these fruits. A phenomenon of this type and magnitude must be tackled by everyone,
together”.
To tackle it, this phenomenon must first be understood. “Daeş. Viaggio nella banalità del male” by Sara Montinaro (Meltemi Editore, 2020) is a fundamental analysis tool to interpret and
understand the dynamics of the Islamic State.