by NISHA PAHUJA
Storming through Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has “resurrected” the Caliphate, de-claring the group’s chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new caliph and calling on Muslims around the world to swear loyalty to him. This latest outcome of the Arab Spring is one that western com-mentators did not predict. At the outset, the Arab Spring was welcomed for over-throwing autocratic governments. It was also almost implicitly assumed that these governments would then be re-placed with secular, liberal dispensa-tions modelled after present-day west-ern polities. After all, this was what mo-dernity was all about, right? As it turns out, this belief in the absolute telos of modernity was quite misplaced and the Arab Spring turned not to “European” secularism but to Islamism.
Economic & Political Weekly for more
(Thanks to Mukul Dube)