Political culture and political agency: from Gaugamela to Mosul

While for a long time the organisation of people in nation-states was seen as the ultimate aim of politics, the dark sides of nation-states were overemphasized during the last decades, almost completely overshadowing the benefits of the very same project. Peter Sloterdijk described the change which is underway with the metaphor of the bubble, the globe and the postmodern foam. While societies in modern nation-state showed a strong coherence, resulting in political agency through the organization of those states, and a strong feeling of belonging, the inhabitants of postmodern countries live in their own, small bubbles and cannot identify with any larger social organization anymore. While authoritarian states can compensate the lacking participation of their citizens by force and suppression for a while, such top-down systems seem not to work for a long time (examples Saddam Hussein’s and Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Soviet Union, etc). Scholars dealing with ancient and recent history were always amazed by historical events, in which a tiny group of people managed to overcome a huge number of enemies. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) is one of these figures, who came from an insignificant place, with a small number of men and managed to defeat armies outnumbering his own forces ten times. However, in recent history the fall of Mosul provides us with a very similar story. Around 1.000 ISIS members defeated a combined force of 60.000 soldiers and policemen and could establish their rule over a city with nearly 2 million inhabitants in June 2014. The ISIS fighters were few years ago very active on Iraqi territory with a string of successful conquests behind them wish to gain control over all of Iraq and Syria, including Baghdad and Damascus. If we would find such a story about the Persian wars or the conquest of Alexander in late 4th century BC, every source-critical historian would argue that this is pure exaggeration that cannot be taken seriously. Obviously if 1000 combatants would have attacked Mosul when the state of Iraq was in a better condition , it would have been a question of a few hours or days to defeat them. Times of crises and decay are times where massive social change can be achieved relatively easy by a determined group of people.