NATIONAL IDENTITY IN AMBIGUITY: FROM NATIONALISM TO FUNDAMENTALISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST (CASE STUDY: DAESH)

One of the reasons for the end of colonialism in the Middle East was to raise of nationalist sentiment. Egypt was the leading nationalist program in the Arab world. Nationalism in Syria and Iraq was emerged in the form of the Ba'ath Party and military leaders. But this nationalist claim in the Middle East could not create achievements that make in the West. If we ignore the depth and sociality of this nationalist claim, we should admit the achievements of nationalism made national states with the new geopolitical background in the region. Just the most prominent accomplishment of nationalism was the new political boundaries in the Middle East. This research seeks to study this hypothesis; that nationalism couldn't bring national identity for the Middle East, which based on that, the process of nation-state making, national unity and political stability in the region would happen and persist. For this reason, Arab nations have shifted away from nationalism to fundamentalism, not for nation-state or reform of political structures, but for obtaining a new and different identity from the national identity and to compensate for the inherited failures of the past. On the other words, in the new approach in the Middle East, which fundamentalism and violence are its key tools, the national identity is still buried in ambiguity, and territorial borders are also in danger of fundamental collapse. In this paper, Social Identity Theory is used to identify fundamentalist groups, especially ISIS.