Following on from the rapid spread of Isis in Iraq & Syria Paul Bowman presented an update intended to inform on the contemporary politics of Jihadism and its entanglement with regional and global imperialist power plays.

He starts by looking in detail at the ideological / religious background of the Salafist movements including ISIS and how such movements differ from those of the Muslim Brotherhood / Ikwanite.

Areas covered included

- Introduction to the roots of Salafism

- Geopolitical backers, pre-Arab Spring

- Arab Spring: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria

- Who or what is the Islamic State?

- The Irish connection (not released on audio/video)

- The Kurds

All this and more will be answered (sort of...)

See also the post meeting text on the origins of the hostility and the split between Al Qa’ida and ISIS at http://www.wsm.ie/c/origins-hostility-al-qaida-isis

The recording was made at a WSM meeting in Dublin, Sept 2014. There is a hiss in the first 6 minutes of the audio that then fades down

Audio only recording

ISIS Jihadism and Imperialism in the post Arab Spring period- an anarchist analysis from WSM by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud