What Kind of Animal is the ISIS Cat?

WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL IS THE ISIS CAT?

Matt CornellAmsterdam School for Cultural Analysis

University of Amsterdam

WEAPONIZING CUTENESSTaken as a whole, this is a curious image: the funny feline suggests the trivial ephemera of the Internet with its LOLCat memes and cute cat videos, while the gun signals the serious threat of ISIS’ bloody jihad. The homey blanket and plump cat stage a domestic scene while the flag and weapon point to a mission outside of the frame. However contradictory the signifiers, the metaphor here is unmistakable: this cat is a weapon.

DOMESTICATING ISISThis combination of text, image and medium stages a web of cultural and affective attachments, which domesticate the man’s image. The feeding of the kitten—a possible stray—at the doorstep depicts the man’s caring stewardship of his adopted community, the base in Raqqah, Syria which ISIS recruits call home. The man fulfills the role of caregiver to the domesticated cat and is domesticated in turn; his image is softened and familiarized. While the tweet appears to depict the mundane morning ritual of feeding, it also stages an intimate relationship between human and cat, where the boundaries between each have been subtly obscured. The playful use of “mewjahid,” a pun on “mujahid” creates an ambiguity about the attribution of this sentiment. The text can be read as the cat’s dialogue, an anthropomorphic celebration of friendship with its human companion. It can also be read in reverse, as the man’s statement about his relationship with the cat. The Twitter format prompts us to share the tweet through “favorites” and “retweets” signaling the account’s place in a shared online cultural space. Finally, the use of the LOLCat meme asserts the militant’s belonging to a global Internet genre with roots in Western culture.

“TERRORIST” AS UNCANNY DOUBLE

Just as the cat is endowed with human properties via the anthropomorphism of the genre, the human is endowed with feline properties through a parallel process of zoomorphism. The militant, in a bit of wordplay, is recast from a “mujahid” to a “mewjahid,” his fearsome reputation augmented and softened by the adorable figure of the cat. In this sense, the cat domesticates the terrorist; the animal paradoxically humanizes the man. This reverses the force of imperial and colonial discourses revived by the War on Terror which frequently dehumanize the Other, likening him to an animal.Through this process, the distance between “us” and the formerly inhuman terrorist collapses. The uncanny image of our double hits, as the expression goes, “close to home.” The militant however, is not quite at home with us. Opened up between us and him is a distance that cannot be closed and it accounts for the creepy, weird and dread-inducing effect of the uncanny. The ISIS militant is not quite domestic, but we can no longer call him wild. He belongs to us, but also to ISIS—his multiple allegiances and attachments, his many homes, represent a threat.

CLASSIFYING THE ISIS CATNeither domestic, nor wild: in animals we call this status “feral.” A feral animal is one that has been domesticated to live among humans, but which has abandoned or been rejected by them. Wild animals are rarely dangerous, because they fear humans. Feral animals, by contrast, can be dangerous because they are accustomed to humans but have taken up the life of the wild. Cats are among the most successful of feral animals; their uncanny ability to thrive in spaces both domestic and wild testifies to a dual nature. If the ISIS Cat is a mediated self-portrait of our terrorist double, then it is a feral image. The ISIS Cat is a feral animal.

THE CRUELTY WITHIN CUTENESSWhether the man is actually tickling the cat or simply posing for a shot, the act of tickling is suggestive in its ambiguity. Tickling can take the form of pleasurable, intimate play and also of unpleasant and cruel torture.Is this a “cute” image, like the many millions of amateur cat photos circulating on the Internet? Or is it a “cruel” one, consistent with ISIS’ fearsome reputation? Can it be both? A growing body of research argues that aggression and domination are intrinsic to the aesthetics of cuteness.

TWO BATTLEFIELDS, TWO WEAPONS.If we read the cat as a figure that has been weaponized, then this is a scene of an ISIS militant displaying his firepower—for both the actual war, and the cultural image war. In one hand, he has the gun; in the other, the cat.If we view this as a “cute” image, where cuteness is a function of our affection and aggression toward the cute animal, and parallel fantasies of its capacity for revenge, the cat’s gestures take on other meanings. Perhaps the cat is tired of being teased and wishes to scratch its human companion. Maybe, as the caption suggests, the cat wants to grab hold of the gun and take revenge for hundreds of years of domestication and cute-ification. If the ISIS Cat is a hybrid self-portrait of the militant, the cat’s desire to seize the gun is an expression of the human subject’s desire to take revenge on what he perceives as Western domination.