Keane Hamilton
From Fake Watermelons to Black Flags: Colonialism, Corruption, and the Seeds of Insurgency
Mentor: Dr. André Lambelet
| How do we find ourselves in conflict? Western geopolitics has attributed the rise of the Islamic State to religious extremism, and announced its fall as the triumph of the nation-state. What the West fails to address is its own role in creating spaces for insurgency in the Middle East. We examine how imperial narratives of regional instability and resulting economies of securitization have made Iraq vulnerable to both domestic and international corruption. We outline cases of corruption in the Iraqi government, from fake watermelons to ghost soldiers, and their direct consequences in the global fight against the Islamic State. |
