The new Middle East, ISIL and the 6th revolt against the West

Abstract

This chapter aims to provide an analysis of the 'new' in 'the new Middle East.' We argue that what is 'new' is the revolt against the West currently underway in the contemporary Middle East, challenging the dominant values of Western statehood and personhood. This chapter identifies the novelty in the politics of radical antagonism, apocalyptic geopolitical imagination, the rebirth of extraterritorial subjectivities, and the politics of resistance, which together shatter the existing political logos. Two particular empirical cases animate our discussion, namely the Arab Spring and the ISIL. By providing such groundwork, the paper also hopes to point to new avenues for further research that would go beyond the confines of narrow, ethnocentric accounts of 'the new the Middle East'.