Losing One's Head

"Although Global Post's investigation at one point led us to believe that James [Foley] was being held by the Syrian government, we later were given strong reason to believe he was being held by Islamic militants in Syria. We withheld this information at the request of the family and on the advice of authorities co-operating in the effort to protect Jim. Global Post, working with a private security company, has amassed an enormous amount of information that has not been made public."
Philip Balboni Global Post CEO and co-founder

"The religious and cultural symbolism that the sword carries with it in the eyes of the Muslims, particularly in the Middle East, is an important factor in determining the terrorists' choice to behead hostages."
Pete Lentini and Muhammad Bakashmar, Monash University, Global Terrorism Research Centre, 2007 academic paper

"I don't think there's anything inherently Islamist to these beheadings."
Max Abrahms, jihadist groups professor

This undated image shows a frame from a video released by Islamic State militants on Tuesday. (Photo: AP)

 

But, in fact, it is a tradition, one with cultural, regional underpinnings and the sword is what in reality was used to persuade populations from Middle East Bedouin tribes to North African tribal leaders, to European communities cowering in dread and fear at the onslaught of Islamic armies determined to conquer peoples and territories for the greater glory of Islam. Islamist fanatics have persuaded themselves that they do the work of Allah in seeking out and destroying the impure, the heretics. 

 

And beheadings are most attention-grabbing, instilling fear in those who require chastening.

Murdered journalist James Foley's father John and mother Diane are mourning the dreadful death of their son. They do him honour as a bright spark in their lives, proud of his journalistic capabilities, of his courage. He had been taken hostage once before, and had been released by the Syrian government. Entreated not to venture into such conflict zones again, he had been given a desk job editing, and held out doing that for months, before returning to journalism.

Editing, newspaper reporting on mundane affairs did not represent his idea of what he wanted to do with his life. Journalism, reporting back from dangerous hot-spots of the world attracted him as it does many other journalists. This time his fascination with that kind of reporting took his life.  He went the way of Daniel Pearl, another intrepid journalist whose videoed beheading shocked a world audience into the realization of what Islamism at its goriest represents: stark barbarism.

Islamist sensibilities are not gentle Western concerns for the sanctity of human life. To the idealism of fanatical Islamists, human life is expendable, for it is Islam and its spread by the sword that is of ultimate importance in the world; to deliver the world to the surrender to Islam. During the first Chechen War. after refusing to convert to Islam, Russian soldier Yevgeny Rodionov was filmed being beheaded.

In Iraq the beheading of foreigners appeared a particularly favoured tactic. Now, for Islamic State, beheadings represent a vital strategy to demonstrate its dedication to instructing its growing audience that they are right to fear ISIS, and persuading in the other direction, young Muslims that their futures are bright with adventure let alone the spilling of blood when they venture to join Islamic State militias. But why stop with ISIS?

Last year Amnesty International made note of a 'disturbing' rise in executions in Saudi Arabia, some of them accomplished through the tradition of beheading. As for James Foley's direct confrontation with traditional Islamist punishment; it appears to have come at the hands of an especially vicious, British-born-and-accented member of Islamic State. "John" is described as well-educated, intelligent, committed as a member of ISIS.

Doing al-Qaeda one better. Spain and France and Germany have committed to buying the freedom of their nationals. Israel is notorious for trading one Israeli for countless Arab Palestinian prisoners, many convicted of the murder or planning the mass murder of Jews. Britain, Canada and the United States have a stated policy of not negotiating with terrorists. ISIS is said to have demanded one hundred million dollars to free James Foley.