1 Propagandistic Discourses on âJihadist Terrorismâ in Contemporary Spain1
The concept âjihadâ derives its meaning from the third Arabic form of the triliteral root j-h-d, which denotes a struggle or an effort. What sets âjihadâ apart from other forms of exertion and combat (e.g. qital -fighting-, harb -war-) is the fact that by definition, âjihadâ implies a struggle in the path of God (fi sabil Allah) (Firestone 2002; Albarrán 2018; Bonner 2008). The way such exertion is articulated admits a whole continuum of possibilities, ranging from the deployment of violent, even military means (âlesser jihadâ -al-jihad al-asghar-) to that of moral and spiritual betterment (âgreater jihadâ -al-jihad al-akbar-). It follows from this that there is no such thing as the doctrine of âjihadâ, but rather a plurality of normative practices related to jihad whose capaciousness and diversity greatly exceeds doctrinal and juridical discourses on it, thus showing that these are neither the only nor the defining elements of âjihadâ as meaningfully Islamic (Balbale 2014, 98, 102; Ahmed 2015, 444). Nevertheless, the understanding of âjihadâ as a militaristic enterprise is predominant in both the origins of Islam,2 and also in doctrinal and popular discourse (Streusand 1997; Esposito 2003). This is also the conceptualisation of âjihadâ that underlies El PrÃncipe. From this perspective, and following the iconic attacks of 9/11, âjihadist terrorismâ has come to refer both in public discussion and practice to a widespread form of modern warfare against liberalism. This contemporary trend is often referred to by conservatives as âmodern jihadismâ (Harris and Nawaz 2015, 42, 102) and âglobal jihadâ (Harris and Nawaz 2015, 115).
In Spain, to which âjihadist terroristsâ often refer as âAl-Andalusâ,3 this essentialism allows the State and mainstream media to reduce local âjihadist terrorismâ to a security concern to be monitored and neutralised as part of the so-called â(Global) War on Terrorâ (De ArÃstegui 2006; Torres Soriano 2009; Reinares 2014; López Bargados 2016). According to this narrative, in Spain âmodern global jihadâ peaked shortly after 2003 when then-President Jose MarÃa Aznar made the highly controversial decision to involve Spain in the US invasion of Iraq. However, it did not take long for Al-Qaeda to retaliate against Spanish civilians via the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which yielded 2,050 non-fatal injuries and 192 deaths. These attacks redefined Spainâs overall security and defence strategy against âjihadist terrorismâ, increasing its related staff and profiling, toughening the Spanish penal code and raising its âcounter-terroristâ alert to level 4 out of 5 (Ministerio del Interior 2015). However, this process did not prevent an increase in âjihadist terroristâ activities in Spain, culminating in the 2017 Barcelona attacks carried out by ISIS.
The ideological reduction of Spanish âjihadismâ to a security concern to be monitored and neutralised as part of the âGlobal War on Terrorâ has served to advance State surveillance and Spanish nationalism while depoliticising local âjihadist terroristâ attacks. First, it has allowed the Spanish State to overstate its attributions in a globalised context where these have shrunk, thus manufacturing a new social consensus that can then be instrumentalised for surveillance and compliance purposes (Anholt 2011; Reinares 2014). Key to this effort is the chauvinist framing of the Spanish nation as the âGoodâ and the âUsâ within the theological and anthropological binary âGood/Us vs Evil/Themâ (Brown 2017). As part of the latter, the Spanish State has dehumanised the Arab-Muslim Other as a permanent threat to an otherwise successful State, thus perpetuating its oligarchic structures while instituting a new strand of Orientalism, understood as the distorting stereotypes through which the white West observes the East, thus rendering the latter servile to the imperialistic interest of the former (Said 1978, 26â7). This new Orientalism conceptualises Spanish âjihadist terrorismâ as a problem of public order, focusing the attention on the âjihadistsâ alleged rampant psychopathologies (Torres Soriano 2009), which in turn facilitates the disavowal of Spainâs (neo)colonial record and responsibilities (López Bargados 2016, 18).
1.1 What is âJihadist Radicalisationâ, Anyway?
Based on the above, the contemporary label âjihadist radicalisationâ is predicated on the reduction of âjihadâ to âjihadist terrorismâ against the âWestern infidelâ. In this context, âradicalisationâ (neither irreversible nor necessarily conducive to âterrorismâ) emerged as a mainstream term after the publication of a 2007 New York Police Department report called Radicalization in the West. The process known as âjihadist radicalisationâ is best understood as a form of ideological recruitment by which an individual comes to accept the behaviour and beliefs that are characteristic of âjihadist terrorismâ. According to Harris and Nawaz, âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ relies upon four elements: a grievance narrative (whether real or perceived), an identity crisis, a charismatic recruiter and an ideological dogma (âjihadist terrorismâ). First, there is a specific grievance narrative, combined with an identity crisis. Second, upon recruitment by a charismatic leader, this narrative is fossilised by ideological dogma, whereas the identity crisis is alleviated by tribalism (i.e., high in-group loyalty happening at the expense of out-group hostility). Finally, those recruited embrace this dogma and adopt its propaganda to express themselves (Harris and Nawaz 2015, 10â11, 58).
In Spain, the most common profile of a recruited âjihadist terroristâ during the 2004-to-2016 period (while El PrÃncipe was recorded and aired) was a male under 30 years old who had been radicalised at home, on the internet, at his local mosque or in prison, for an average period of four to five years. Madrid, Catalonia, Valencia and Ceuta stood out as hotspots of âjihadist terroristâ recruitment and radicalisation (GarcÃa-Calvo and Reinares 2013).
2 El PrÃncipe: Amor sin Frontera
El PrÃncipe: Amor sin Frontera (2014â6) is a hit crime fiction and soap opera that owes its title to the homonymous neighbourhood where the TV series is set, which lies in the south of the Spanish exclave city of Ceuta in northwest Africa. Easily discernible by its iconic, favela-like orography, El PrÃncipe stands as a (post)colonial remnant of Spainâs encroachment on Africa with 20,000 inhabitants, the overwhelming majority of whom are Arab Muslims.
Mohamed Laachiri (2012) showed that since the 1960s, El PrÃncipe has experienced a steady decline and deterioration, mired in petty crime, drug dealing, unemployment and more recently, âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ. Already in 2002, local Hamed Abderraman Ahmed claimed that âWe are the forgotten ones. Not even the police dare to enterâ [âSomos los olvidados. Aquà no se atreve a entrar ni la policÃaâ] (as cited in RodrÃguez 2015).
The TV series El PrÃncipe is best understood against this background. It spans two seasons for a total of 31 episodes, and its plot can be roughly summarised as follows:
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(i) The Spanish National Centre of Intelligence (CNI) has detected a âjihadist terroristâ cell, and now seeks to identify its local recruiters as a means of dismantling the cell in question: âWe have confirmed the presence of a jihadist cell that is recruiting disaffected youngsters from El PrÃncipe neighbourhood, to turn them into suicide bombers (â¦) the goal is to identify the collaborators and deactivate the cellâ [âHemos confirmado la presencia de una célula yihadista que está captando a jóvenes descontentos del Barrio de El PrÃncipe, en Ceuta, para convertirlos en terroristas suicidas (â¦) el objetivo es identificar a los colaboradores y desactivar la célulaâ.]
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(ii) The mission leader is CNI agent Javier Morey, a secular, fit and bold young man who stands for Spainâs postcolonial modernity. Shortly after landing in El PrÃncipe, Morey meets Fátima Ben Barek, the Orientalist embodiment of a green-eyed, slender Arab Muslim woman. When they first exchange glances, intense sexual chemistry ensues, as if both had met in a previous life. This tension operates as symbolic déjà vu of the Christian conquest of al-Andalus and the parallel onset of Spanish African colonialism. As Daniela Flesler has noted through Shahab Ahmed, âthe recognition of an Other as a stranger (â¦) is constituted through an encounter in the present that reopens past encountersâ (2008, 117).
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(iii) Morey and Fátimaâs sincere and desperate romantic desire for each other is held back by the repressive, backward forces of Muslim patriarchy and its prohibition of interfaith marriage. Fátimaâs older brother, Faruq, is a major drug dealer, while her younger siblings (Abdessalam and Nayat) get recruited by the local âjihadist terroristâ cell called Akrab. In addition, Fátimaâs family forces her to enter into an arranged marriage with her cousin, French Arab Muslim named Khaled Assour. While presenting himself as a successful businessman, Assour is actually the leader of Akrab.
As remarked by Flesler, the evocations of Moorish spectres in contemporary Spain serve a dual purpose, namely:
They symptomatically alert us to the openness of the past, how it is not solved (â¦) At the same time, the convocation of these ghosts attempts to dilute the most troubling ramifications of the past regarding the Arab identity of Spain, positing âMoorsâ not as an intrinsic aspect of this identity but in a definable space of otherness (â¦) (2008, 124).
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(iv) Eventually, Morey manages to unmask Fátimaâs husband as the leader of Akrab, and also as a stereotypically repressive wife-beating Muslim, both of which are blatant Islamophobic tropes.
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(v) Morey and Khaled fight over Fátima, conceptualised as the trophy woman of neocolonialism (whether Spanish/secular or French/Muslim). In the end, Morey survives, but both Khaled and Fátima die. In other words, Spanish modernity prevails over both its enemies and its ultimate object of (neocolonial) desire.
While there has not been any comprehensive scholarly analysis of El PrÃncipe, the most relevant precedent is perhaps a brief article written by Yasmina Aidi in 2015 and published shortly after the first few episodes were aired. Aidi focuses on the extent to which this series reproduces and consolidates various forms of racist and sexist stereotyping while further contributing to the othering of Spanish Muslims. She makes the following claims:
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(a) The romance between the main characters (mainland Spanish Morey and Spanish Muslim Fátima) ârecycles (â¦) vulgar, racist fantasies that white men have of Arab womenâ.
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(b) The casual use of the term âmoroâ (âMoorâ) is racist and factually inaccurate.
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(c) The producers make it look as if all Muslims are potential âterroristsâ.
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(d) Muslim men are portrayed as âdomineering (â¦) patriarchsâ.
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(e) The series is not well-researched.
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(f) The series âmakes no effort to understand why youth may gravitate to gangs or religious extremismâ.
Whereas I agree entirely with Aidiâs central claim that El PrÃncipe âis perpetuating dangerous stereotypesâ (e.g., Orientalism, Islamophobia), charges (c) to (f) are unwarranted. First, while there is too close an association between Islam and âterrorismâ, not all Muslims are depicted as potential âterroristsâ. This is evidenced by characters such as Hassan (Fátimaâs father) or the local imam, both sincere and vocal moderate Muslims who consistently oppose and condemn violence in general and âjihadist terrorismâ in particular. Their anti-Islamophobic messages, which are particularly recurring in the second season, are compounded by the late appearance of Samy, a Muslim policeman whose parents were killed by the perpetrators of the 2004 Madrid bombings.
Second, despite the existence of apparent inaccuracies and prejudiced falsities, the TV series is on the whole well-researched. El PrÃncipeâs scriptwriter visited the homonymous neighbourhood several times before starting its fictional rendering (Rubio 2014). The settings, local institutions, traditions, costumes and prayers of the characters, plus the different divisions within the Spanish national security forces and their procedures, are all accurately recreated. There is also a meticulous reproduction of the linguistic conventions used in the abundant âjihadist terroristâ material (videos, letters) and iconography featured in the series, some of which are shown directly in Dariya and Modern Standard Arabic.
Finally, and crucially to my overall argument, as I shall show in the following section, Aidiâs claim that âthe series (â¦) makes no effort to understand why youth may gravitate to gangs or religious extremismâ is unjustified.
3 The Path to Jihadist Terrorism as Recreated in El PrÃncipe
While each of the most relevant cases of âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ in El PrÃncipe is the archetypical representation of a different kind of recruit (e.g., the mujahid, the returnee, the inghimasi, described in Section 3), all of them feature the four core elements identified by Harris and Nawaz: a grievance narrative, an identity crisis, a charismatic recruiter and the ideological dogma of âjihadist terrorismâ. What varies amongst the recruits is the presence or absence of aggravating factors: unemployment, lack of prospects, lack of education, love, power hunger, and resentment towards âWesternâ foreign policies.
3.1 First Season
The main thread is the disappearance and retrieval of Fátimaâs disaffected brother, Abdessalam Ben Barek, also known as Abdu. His is the last in a long and dramatic series of âradicalisationâ cases, to whose analysis I shall now turn, following the order of their presentation in the series.
3.1.1 The Original Mujahid : Tariq Basir
When he was just sixteen, Tariq blew himself up in Tangier in the name of âjihadâ (hence âmujahidâ, a person who fights a âjihadâ), killing eleven. Although he is never seen on camera, we gradually learn that his influence in the âradicalisationâ of other disaffected youngsters from El PrÃncipe is significant, and that he epitomises the figure of the charismatic recruiter. Indeed, Tariq recruited Abdessalam, and the formerâs suicide inspires the youth from El PrÃncipe to follow suit.
3.1.2 The Suicide Bomber: Karim Basir
Tariqâs brother, Karim, is uneducated and poor. One day he accepts â¬1,000 in exchange for a dangerous assignment: getting rid of a member of the Ben Barek family. After Karim stabs his victim to death, the police put him in jail, where he discloses crucial information related to Akrab. Upon his release, the local sheikh, who has learned about Karimâs confessions, savagely tortures the young whistleblower. With Karimâs wounds still open, he is told that he has been âchosen by Allahâ to blow himself up, and that this is his last chance to serve âThe Causeâ. A classical mujahid speech ensues with the effect of encouraging Karim to become a suicide bomber. Eventually, Karim is persuaded and gets a bomb strapped to him.
Morey then arrives at the scene and begins to negotiate with Karim. This dialogue is highly symptomatic of the way the Spanish intelligence services conceptualise âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ. Instead of adopting a traditional and authoritarian position, Morey drops his gun, opens his arms in a non-threatening fashion and offers himself up to Karim:
Let everyone go, Karim. I will stay here alone with you. You will bring an infidel to hell, and that way, you will reach heaven. For thatâs what you want, right? (â¦) Or is it? (â¦) You donât want to die, Karim.
Deja que se vayan todos, Karim. Me quedaré yo solo contigo. Te llevarás un infiel al infierno, y con eso llegarás al paraÃso. ¿Porque eso es lo que quieres, no? (â¦) Tú no quieres morir, Karim.
By reducing the complexity of âjihadist terrorismâ to an epiphenomenal form of ideological brainwashing specially designed to colonise the vulnerable minds of poor adolescents, Morey, who represents the Spanish security forces, disavows the sheer possibility that there might be some deeper cause to it. As proved by the denouement of the scene, this disavowal merely exacerbates the problem.
Unconvinced by Moreyâs condescending speech Karim answers back: âEnough is enough! Shut up. Youâre not going to convince me. Itâs too late. Youâre all going to die. Allah hu Akbar!!!â [â¡Ya basta! Cállate. No me vas a convencer. Es demasiado tarde. Vais a morir (â¦) Allah hu Akbar!!!â] only a fraction of a moment before blowing himself up.
3.1.3 The False Convert: Hakim
Hakim is an extrovert Spanish Arab police officer. At age sixteen, he was involved in petty crime, got arrested and ended up in a probation centre. At that point, a leading local police officer, Fran, persuaded him to become a policeman. One day, Hakimâs girlfriend (her colleague Mati) realises that he features in an Akrab video. The next day, she confronts him, but Hakim denies the accusation and quickly removes the video from the server. However, the CNI finds independent proof that he had actually smuggled in the gun with which Tariq committed suicide and had tried to get rid of Karim while the latter was in jail. Hakim flees, but the local police manage to find him, and a shootout begins. Another pre-suicide negotiation ensues with a leader of the Spanish security forces (Fran). Hakim exposes his condescending and tokenistic approach vis-Ã -vis Spanish Arab Muslims:
Hakim: Donât talk to me like Iâm a youngster. Iâm a soldier of Allah!
Fran: I made a policeman out of you!
Hakim: Just because you needed to have a Moor in there (â¦) youâve never taken me seriously!
Hakim: ¡No me hables como a un niñâo, soy un soldado de Allah!
Fran: ¡Hice de ti un policÃa!
Hakim: ¡Porque te interesaba tener un moro allà (â¦) nunca me has tomado en serio!
Hakim is not particularly poor or ignorant. Nor is he best described as a religious zealot. Rather, his âradicalisationâ process is mainly due to the perceived need to overcompensate for his everyday alienation as an Arab Muslim Other in contemporary Spain by finding a strong sense of identity in the ideological tenets of âjihadist terrorismâ. Like Morey, Fran reduces the complexity of âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ to brainwashing and essentialised âterrorismâ: âIf you truly hate me, if you are actually a terrorist, shoot. I want to see just how much they have brainwashed youâ [âSi de verdad me odias, si de verdad eres un terrorista, dispara. Quiero ver hasta dónde te han comido el cocoâ].
Hakim now realises he cannot escape from the kind of false exclusionary disjunct Fran is making explicit, i.e., one that perpetuates Islamophobia by narrowing down the diverse socio-cultural, religious and political allegiances of Spanish Arab Muslims to two options: Western secularism or âjihadist terrorismâ. Unable to find the answers he was yearning for, Hakim shoots himself dead in front of Fran and Mati.
3.1.4 The Man in Search of Meaning: Abdessalam Ben Barek (Nickname âAbduâ)
The grievance narrative begins with Abdessalamâs âradicalisationâ when he is denied a scholarship to study medicine in mainland Spain, which he perceives as unfair. Neither poor nor uneducated, it is at this point that he starts to distance himself from his girlfriend and family, seeking spiritual refuge instead in the local mosque and applying his academic skills to the exploration of the Quâran, alongside local âjihadist terroristsâ.
At the beginning of the last episode, Abdessalam takes a bus to Ceuta. He plans to stow a bomb in the boot of the bus, wait for the vehicle to board the ferry and then detonate the bomb. However, the local policemen manage to identify Abdu as one of the passengers. A whole security operation ensues, which mobilises plenty of troops and police personnel. As Fátima, her fiancé, his brother and Morey all learn about the situation, they rush to the port. Abdessalam decides to hold the remaining passengers hostage, threatening to kill them. A round of spontaneous one-on-one negotiations begins to deter him from detonating the explosives, or at least to allow some extra time for the police to deactivate the bomb.
Abdessalamâs brother Faruq is first up. He gets on the bus and informs him that Fátima is getting married that same day, letting him know that the whole Ben Barek family looks forward to welcoming him back. To his bafflement, Abdessalam replies that he no longer feels any connection to this type of earthly celebrations, for he has chosen to embrace âAllahâs pathâ instead. Faruq attempts to counter-argue these claims by reducing âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ to a matter of trivial ideological brainwashing, thus denying Abdessalam any agency in the process: âYou havenât chosen anything. They have brainwashed you, and before you know it here you are, on a bus with a bomb, terrorising peopleâ [âTú no has elegido nada. Te han llenado la cabeza de ideas y cuando te has querido dar cuenta estás en un autobús con una bomba aterrorizando a la genteâ]. Abdessalam frowns at Faruqâs sweeping diagnosis and shoots him in the shoulder. Eventually, Faruq abandons the bus in hope of saving his own life.
Next up is Fátima Ben Barek, his sister. She adopts a less judgemental stance: âAbdu, what happened to you? Why did you flee?â [âAbdu, ¿qué te pasó?, ¿por qué te fuiste?â]. While previous negotiators were merely addressing the symptoms (i.e., the alleged brainwashing), Fátima lucidly understands that she needs to confront Abdu with the very fantasy that structures his âjihadist terroristâ jouissance, i.e., what drives him beyond the search for pleasure or material gain (Žižek 2012, 311). Abdu replies as follows: âI joined this fight to combat this type of empty life, so that Islam rules again over good Muslimsâ [âYo me unà a esta lucha para combatir ese tipo de vidas huecas, para que el Islam vuelva a gobernar sobre los buenos musulmanes.â] Fátima hugs him and takes advantage of the fact that Abdu is now off guard to take the gun from him gently. However, she fails to do the same with his phone detonator, to which Abdessalam holds fast.
Upon leaving the intimate isolation of the bus, Abdu opens his eyes to the outer world and gets increasingly anxious. Morey tries to calm him down by congratulating the youngster on his improvement while urging him to drop his phone detonator. As Abdessalam ignores Moreyâs requests, he spots a police agent actively trying to deactivate the explosives. At which point, he realises that his leverage will not last long. Abduâs whole self-narrative and identity as a heroic, âenlightened jihadistâ is about to crumble. He goes irreversibly berserk, and just a split second before he can blow himself up or the bomb gets deactivated, Morey despatches Abdu with a precise headshot.
In sum, what we learn at the end of the first season is that for the Ben Barek family, the return of Abdessalam was a much more complex situation than that of merely reclaiming a lost child. His ego had become so intractably linked with the narrative of âjihadist terrorismâ itself that one could no longer remove his commitment to it without killing him.
3.2 Second Season
The final season of El PrÃncipe focuses on Moreyâs slow but steady unmasking of Khaled Assour as the leader of Akrab. Along the way, Morey will come across other cases of âjihadist terroristâ recruitment, whose analysis will equip him with a deeper understanding of Khaledâs motives. I shall now discuss those cases, following their order of appearance in the series.
3.2.1 The Returnee: Tammam Naid Yasin
Yasin embodies the proverbial figure of the returnee, i.e., the foreign fighter that returns home after the conflict. A chemist in his country of origin, upon moving to France, he was forced to work as a street cleaner. Over the years, Yasin would experience a strong political disaffection towards Western Europe and alienation as a second-class citizen that will find in the ideological dogmata of âjihadist terrorismâ a catalyst for âradicalisationâ. Eventually, he enrolled in the Syrian War, from which he would come back to Europe and arrive in El PrÃncipe.
Already in Ceuta, Yasin is initially arrested, as he is accused of brutalising his wife and daughter, and involvement in âjihadist terrorismâ. However, he manages to get away with denying both accusations. After being released without charges, he quickly rejoins fellow âjihadist terroristsâ Khaled and Salman, Khaledâs uncle. Together, they start plotting an ambitious attack in El PrÃncipe. Yasin suggests they contaminate a major supply of water in the neighbourhood. By placing his experience as a chemist at the service of the âjihadist terroristâ cause, he is effectively mirroring Abdessalamâs manoeuvre in the first season: using his experience and skills against the very Western society that had previously judged these abilities insufficient to grant him first-class citizen status.
In their role as archetypal charismatic recruiters, Salman and Khaled are fully aware of this psychological need, as shown by the ease with which they take advantage of Yasinâs desperation to prove himself. They set him up for failure and then report him to the police in the hope of making the latter believe that they are both innocent and cooperative.
3.2.2 The Bait (Sergio Montes) & the Prospective Wife (Nayat Ben Barek)
Sergio Montes is a student at the civic centre of El PrÃncipe who works part-time in a local fruit shop. His is the story of a handsome, witty teenager trapped between an alarming lack of prospects and a solid ambition to overcome this predicament. This combination is a recurring breeding ground for the so-called âexpress radicalisation of conversosâ, i.e. Spaniards with no Islamic background who convert to Islam while in Spain. After some weeks of consuming âjihadist terroristâ content through social networks and local institutions, Sergio embraces Islam, changing his name to Mohammed Fatah. At this point, a charismatic recruiter comes along, offering him the chance to join ISIS in the Syrian Civil War. In what is arguably too close an association between embracing Islam, on the one hand, and âterrorismâ, on the other, Mohammed leaves El PrÃncipe in a matter of hours.
As it turns out, he will serve not only as a combatant but also as a bait for the prospective wives of ISISâ soldiers, the recruitment of whom constitutes an integral part of ISISâs propaganda (GarcÃa-Calvo 2017). This aspect is fictionalised via a fleeting romance between Nayat Ben Barek, Fátimaâs younger sister, and Mohammed himself. The night before leaving El PrÃncipe for Syria, Mohammed sends the following message to Nayat: âNayat, Iâm leaving, and I canât say goodbye. But donât be sad, for soon we shall see each other again. Youâre very special to me. And I know you wonât forget me.â [âNayat, me voy y no puedo despedirme de ti. Pero no te entristezcas, porque sé que pronto nos volveremos a ver. Eres muy especial para mÃ. Y sé que no vas a olvidarme.â] A subsequent investigation reveals that Sergio used his website to send similar love messages to many other girls.
A promotional video is then released, featuring Mohammed as the poster boy of âjihadist terroristâ proselytism:
My name is Mohammed Fatah. I was born in Ceuta (â¦) before coming to Syria to join the Jihad I had my friends, my family and my job ⦠I was just wondering how I could help others. In the end, I found all the answers in the Qurâan. Today, brothers and sisters across the world join our cause. We mujahideen are good people (â¦) What are you waiting for? Look around you and ask yourself one thing: Is this how you want to die?
Me llamo Mohammed Fatah. Nacà en Ceuta (â¦) antes de venirme a Siria para unirme a la Yihad yo tenÃa mis amigos, mi familia, mi trabajo ⦠Yo lo único que hacÃa era preguntarme cómo podÃa ayudar a los demás. Y al final encontré todas las respuestas en el Corán. Hoy hermanos y hermanas de todas las partes del mundo se unen a nuestra causa. Los muyahidines somos gente buena (â¦) ¿A qué estás esperando? Mira a tu alrededor y pregúntate una cosa: ¿es asà como quieres morir?
The video is exposed as propagandistic by Fátima and the local imam at a lecture at the El PrÃncipe civic centre:
Fátima: Ok, guys, this looks like a teaser trailer, right? (â¦) They are like bait. You only show the highlights, and hide the end [of the movie]
Local Imam: And in the end, this boy will die (â¦) being a good Muslim is not about that. Itâs not about taking up arms and killing those who donât think like you. This kid has been fooled.
Fátima: Just like they fooled my brother Abdu.
Fátima: A ver chicos, esto se parece al video promocional de una pelÃcula, ¿verdad? (â¦) Son como un cebo. Solo enseñas lo bueno, las mejores escenas, y te guardas el final.
Imán Local: Y el final es que este chico acabará muerto (â¦) ser un buen musulmán no es eso. No es coger un arma y matar a los que no piensan como tú. A este chico lo han engañado.
Fátima: Como engañaron a mi hermano Abdu.
This oversimplification of the ideological allure exerted by ISIS on the vulnerable youth from El PrÃncipe fails to convince many of the (infantilised) students, amongst whom are Nayat and her friend Nasira. The instructorsâ attempt to make their students understand on a rational level that the video is propagandistic is futile, because the students already agree with that. What the instructors fail to realise is that the ideological pull exerted by the video lies in an argument from authority (i.e., in the status and looks of Mohammed). In other words, while the instructors think that their students are vulnerable to âjihadist terroristâ recruitment because they are subject to false consciousness (i.e., they do not understand that the video is propagandistic), what they are missing is that the students are actually subject to a more subtle form of ideology: enlightened false consciousness4 (i.e., they know that what they are doing is wrong, and yet they do it, because they cannot resist the allure exerted by the charismatic recruiter). As Nayat confesses to Nasira after watching the video and listening to the instructorsâ advice, âbut he is so handsome â¦â [âes que es tan guapo â¦â]
In the end, both Nasira and Nayat travel to Syria, joining other young females to support ISISâs soldiers. As Mohammed enters the building, Nayat runs in desperation to hug him. Mohammed avoids her, eventually grabbing Nayat by the arm and reminding her of âthe primary allegiance of the soldiersâ wivesâ, i.e., âserving Allahâ. The tragic end is served: eventually, Mohammed is shot dead, Nasira blows herself up, and Nayat is rescued in tears as she realises she had been used all along.
3.2.3 The Inghimasi : An Anonymous Squad
The term âinghimasiâ refers to âjihadist terroristsâ who venture deep into the territory of the enemy with no intention of coming back alive. In the last episode of El PrÃncipe, as the Spanish secret services and police become certain that Khaled is the leader of Akrab, they decide to go after him. Surrounded, Khaled reacts by making a phone call to an anonymous disaffected youngster from the neighbourhood, merely uttering the codeword âinghimasiâ. The message gets passed through three other local alienated teens. One after the other, they all grab their Kalashnikovs and head to the police station in defiant attitude. Upon their arrival, they open fire, shooting in an orgiastic frenzy. In this indiscriminate act, it is not difficult to see the manifestation of a previously frustrated desire to access power the proper way allegedly prescribed by Western/Spanish liberal modernity, i.e., by uncorrupted meritocracy expressed through civic structures (trade school, college, job market). Their outburst of subjective violence is best understood as the inverted specular image of the situation of objective sociopolitical and economic violence they had suffered daily in El PrÃncipe, the violent ideology of âjihadist terrorismâ offering them a voice through which to express their grievance. Eventually, the Spanish elite âcounterterrorismâ forces (GEO) take the police station by storm, killing three inghimasi with surgical precision and arresting the remaining one, Hicham, Mohammedâs brother, who had also converted to Islam.
3.2.4 The Avenger: Khaled Assour
Khaled Assour takes centre stage in El PrÃncipeâs second season as the ultimate villain. His is the figure of a âradicalised jihadist terroristâ and a recruiter, and is, in fact, Akrabâs leader. Born and raised as a French Moroccan, Khaled Assour presented himself as a successful businessman with exquisite manners and prestigious education during the first season. In the eyes of Fátimaâs family, Khaled struck the perfect balance between Muslim cultural proximity and the promise of higher living standards in glamorous Paris, far away from the troublesome everyday life of El PrÃncipe. At one point, they even get married.
The story of Khaledâs âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ begins in Paris, where he grew up as a disaffected immigrant, a second-class citizen. His frustrated desire to gain power and social status coincided with a significant presence of local âjihadist terroristsâ, thus offering the breeding ground for his âradicalisationâ. In El PrÃncipe, we learn that a substantial part of Khaledâs success and wealth comes from his involvement in Akrab. Not entirely in line with the traditional values to which he has been paying lip service, in reality, Khaled prioritises his lustful obsession for power and success above almost every other concern, including his family and Islam itself.
In the end, Morey exposes Khaled as being responsible for the indoctrination of Abdessalam and other local youngsters. This forces Fátima to decide between her husband and the one she truly loves, Morey, who represents Spainâs modernity. This struggle is best revealed in a heated argument between all three characters:
Khaled to Fátima: Go with him. Go with him! Do you know what awaits you? In this country, youâll always be a second-class citizen.
Morey: No, thatâs not true. Moreover, youâre not talking about Fátima. Youâre talking about yourself, what you went through when you were in Paris years ago. Back then (â¦) you just wanted to be like anybody else, but no matter how hard you studied, no matter how expensive your suits, your neighbours wouldnât see you as one of them. You were a parvenu. All of a sudden, you learned from Akrab and you saw the perfect opportunity to avenge all your humiliations (â¦), right? But at the end of the day, youâre afraid to realise ⦠that youâre nothing ⦠nothing.
Khaled a Fátima: Vete con él. ¡Vete con él! ¿Sabes lo que te espera? En este paÃs siempre serás una ciudadana de segunda clase.
Morey: No, eso no es verdad. Y además no estás hablando de Fátima. Estás hablando de ti, de lo que tú viviste cuando estabas en ParÃs hace años. Entonces (â¦) solamente querÃas ser uno más, pero por mucho que estudiaras, por muy caros que fueran tus trajes, tus vecinos seguÃan sin mirarte como un igual. Eras un advenedizo. De pronto alguien te habló de Akrab y viste la oportunidad perfecta para vengar todas tus humillaciones (â¦) ¿verdad? Pero en el fondo tienes miedo de darte cuenta ⦠que no eres nada ⦠nada.
Here Moreyâs seems to be able to grasp what the instructors at the civic centre of El PrÃncipe had missed, i.e., that ideological recruitment operates not only rationally, but also libidinally (i.e. based on irrational desire) (Žižek 2012, 11â30). Khaled did not become the leader of the local âjihadist terroristâ cell due to his supposed commitment to the âjihadist terrorismâ. Rather, he understood the inconsistencies of this ideological dogma but did not hesistate to use it as an excuse to first repress his personal frustrations (as in Khaledâs early struggle in Paris to conceal his humiliations as a second-class citizen) and then fill his inner void as an individual (that is, with the imprint of a new empowering identity, that of Akrabâs leader).
3.2.5 Coda: A Tragic End
In the last scene of the series, a shooting breaks out between Morey and Khaled over Fátima. Morey manages to hit Khaled, leaving him badly injured. Morey then runs away with Fátima. However, a struggling Khaled manages to chase them down with a Kalashnikov and shoots a continuous burst at both of them. After which, Morey and Fátima throw themselves in the water to save their lives, as Fran arrives at the scene and shoots Khaled dead from behind. Morey then emerges from the water and pulls Fátima out, but by now, she is barely breathing. Morey desperately tries to revive Fátima, who recovers consciousness for a brief moment, just long enough to declare her ultimate love for Morey, before dying in his arms. A panoramic view of both bodies lying at El PrÃncipeâs shore ensues, accompanied by poignant Orientalist music that further accentuates the Eastern quality of the sunset.
On the one hand, this final postcard would seem to convey the need to look at the bigger historical, political, economic and cultural picture to understand the personal dramas affecting Morey and Fátima in particular, and the inhabitants of El PrÃncipe at large. On the other hand, it would also seem to demonstrate just how Moreyâs (modern Spainâs) obsession with its ultimate object of postcolonial desire (Fátima/northern Africa) was bound to destroy the latter right at the edge of romantic conquest, with love operating here as a sublimation of neocolonial victory.
4 Conclusion
In this essay, I have explained that the kind of conservative framing of âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ that underpins El PrÃncipe is rooted in the Islamophobic reduction of the doctrinal principle of âjihadâ to military attacks of the âterroristâ sort against the perceived religious-cum-political enemy. In Spain, this essentialism allows the Spanish State and its conservative ideologues to reduce local âjihadismâ to a security concern to be monitored and neutralised as part of the âGlobal War on Terrorâ. This helps the Spanish State strengthen its surveillance while engaging in the Orientalist dehumanisation of the Arab-Muslim Other as a permanent threat to the country, while depoliticising Spanish âjihadismâ as a public order problem chiefly motivated by the alleged rampant psychopathologies of âjihadist terroristsâ.
I have shown that El PrÃncipeâs plot is deeply embedded in this ideology, which results in the undeniable reproduction of Islamophobic and Orientalist stereotypes that taint the fictional recreation of âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ in the Ceuta neighbourhood of El PrÃncipe. Chief amongst these are those previously mentioned by Aidi, namely: the romance between Morey and Fátima (which perpetuates Orientalist fantasies), the term âmoroâ (Moor), (which reproduces racist stereotypes), and the excessively close association between Islam and âterrorismâ. To this, I should like to add, based on my analysis, a depoliticising over-reliance on psychological factors as the main rationale behind the âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ undergone by the characters.
Finally, I have shown that contrary to Aidiâs view, the above does not need to imply the strawman that we should dismiss the TV series as a âsilly television seriesâ that âmakes no effort to understand why youth may gravitate to gangs or religious extremismâ. On the contrary, my analysis reveals that in El PrÃncipe the pervasive presence of Spanish chauvinist, Islamophobic and Orientalist elements coexists with a well-researched, open-ended and thought-provoking problematisation of the process of âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ, including its defining features (with a psychoanalytical focus), archetypical actors and underlying geopolitical logic, i.e., the century-old neocolonial dispute between Spain and France over Morocco. Potentially, one could even surmise that El PrÃncipe hints at the possibility that Spainâs self-proclaimed modern progressive liberalism fails to account for the nature and causes of âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ, including its justifying ideologies. This is best illustrated by the ongoing inability of the State security forces and local institutions to deal with âjihadist terrorist radicalisationâ in El PrÃncipe in an effective manner, precipitating the tragic end.
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In line with critical scholarship on terrorism (see Jackson 2016, 103), in this chapter, I will use inverted commas to underscore that the meaning of âjihad(ist)â, â(counter)terrorismâ and âradicalisationâ is not self-evident, but discursively mediated.
See Ahmed 2015, 317; Albarrán 2018, 138.
Originally denoting medieval Iberia under Islamic rule (711â1492), for âjihadist terroristsâ, its contemporary âreconquestâ appears as a moral duty towards the consolidation and prosperity of an eventual universal caliphate (Torres Soriano 2009).
For a discussion of the difference between âfalse consciousnessâ and âenlightened false consciousnessâ, see Žižek 1989, 30.