Kalifat: Scandinavian political drama at its best

The characters in Kalifat, a TV series produced by Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT, are fictitious, yet their stories are intimately connected with an empirical reality. A study by King’s College London estimates that, between 2014 and 2017, over 40,000 foreigners, around 700 of them from Nordic countries, travelled to Islamic State (IS) to join the ‘Caliphate’ established by this terrorist organisation. These foreigners played a fundamental role in the development and expansion of IS’s territorial project in Iraq and Syria. At its peak, IS’s territory spanned over 100,000 square km, that is, more than twice the size of Denmark.

Kalifat subtly combines two interconnected plots that coincide with the two-fold strategy developed by Islamic State, at least until its territorial collapse in early 2019. In brief, the group’s strategy was based on building a territorial project with state-like attributes while simultaneously conducting terrorist attacks beyond its borders against its multiple enemies. The group’s extraordinary achievement in implementing its territorial project cannot be underestimated. In one of the first editions of the propaganda magazine Dabiq, it is claimed that ‘this state […] is a marvel of history’. To a certain extent, they are right. IS was able to create a functioning state from scratch, or rather a parastate that was capable of, inter alia, delivering services to its citizens, establishing coercive mechanisms to maintain its monopoly of violence, expanding its territory through military victories and creating an effective national identity. And all of this was possible without a clear international sponsor.

It is therefore no wonder that IS has provided inspiration for a fair number of TV productions, such as Kalifat, the State (Channel 4) or Black Crows (MBC), that re-enact life under the Caliphate. As I will explain below, the collapse of IS’s territorial project has not led to its demise, as it continues to operate in a wide range of countries across the globe.

Two interconnected plots

One of Kalifat’s central plots is set in Raqqa, IS’s de facto capital until 2017, though it is actually shot in Jordan. Here, the story focuses on a young married woman, Pervin, who grows disenchanted with living in IS and is eager to return to Sweden with her recently born child. The price of her return is to become an informant for the Swedish intelligence agency, SÄPO. Far from simply being just a cinematic trick, this illustrates a reality: disillusioned fighters became crucial sources of intelligence for Western agencies. The scenes in Raqqa depict a wide variety of everyday life situations in the city, such as the draconian rule of law, mundane routines, clandestine mobile phones, paranoia and the permanent fear of U.S. drones.

At the same time, the show develops a parallel story in Sweden with several characters who represent different key figures in both terrorism and counterterrorism. For instance, there is Fatima, a Bosnian-born SÄPO agent who plays the role of the competent yet ill-disciplined intelligence officer who would do whatever it takes to stop a suspected terrorist attack on Swedish soil. A character worth spending some lines analysing is Ibbe, a friendly teaching assistant who is in fact an under the radar operative for IS. On the one hand he is in charge of preparing what is known in U.S. counterterrorism jargon as a Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attack (CCTA) in the Swedish capital. On the other hand, he is also responsible for luring young teenagers at the high school where he works to join IS.

Inspired by real cases

The portrayal of the radicalisation of three young girls is perhaps one of the most exhilarating moments of the show. This process, which is frighteningly rapid and simple, is effectively carried out thanks to Ibbe’s charisma, as well as by using and abusing broadcast propaganda. The radicalisation of the teenagers, which leads them to adopt a new politico-religious identity, is reminiscent of real cases such as that of the Bethnal Green Girls, three teenagers from East London who travelled to IS in 2015. It is believed that only one of them, Shamima Begum, currently imprisoned in northern Syria, is still alive. The three London teenagers may have been the most famous cases, but they were not the only ones. IS spends enormous resources producing propaganda material, some of which specifically targets youngsters, such as videos, magazines and electronic entertainment. Judging by the large numbers of people who joined the Caliphate, it is not too far-fetched to conclude that it paid off.

Undefeated

All in all, Kalifat is a brilliantly executed show that will certainly not disappoint those interested in political drama. However, it is worth remembering that IS, the organisation at the centre of the TV series, is far from having been defeated, in spite of the claims of victory made by various world leaders. Its territorial defeat in early 2019 prompted a fundamental question: will IS be able to survive without its ultimate raison d’être, the Caliphate? My personal view is yes, most definitely. For a start, the ideology that sustained the group, an amalgamation of Wahhabism, Salafism and Takfirism, is still extremely popular across different generations, social classes and national origins. Secondly, IS constitutes a political precedent demonstrating that it is perfectly possible for a jihadist-inspired militia to defeat various state actors and simultaneously establish a state based on a radical ideology. This is of crucial importance, since IS propagandists can now use an empowering narrative of victory, based on the organisation’s recent heroic political-military achievements, to inspire new generations of fighters.

Last but not least, the group continues to operate clandestinely in several parts of the world, including the Sahel, Mozambique, Afghanistan and South East Asia. The organisation is also active in areas it formerly controlled in Iraq and Syria, where its operations are becoming more sophisticated, more deadly and more frequent, suggesting that we are not simply dealing with sporadic attacks but with a full-fledged insurgency. In other words, IS is anything but finished. In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic presents a unique window of opportunity for it. In effect, the combination of factors such as the economic downturn, social unrest and political instability is the ideal recipe for IS, and other extremist groups, to gain support and eventually stage a resurgence. After all, IS’s predecessors originally emerged as a result of the power vacuum created by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Kalifat will, unfortunately, be able to derive further inspiration from real-life events for its forthcoming seasons.

The series can bee streamed on Netflix