Page 4 | Article on Shamima Begum

ArabellaScott · 2021-06-05T16:02:43+00:00

Interesting read in the Times. Discussing culpability, rehabilitation and empathy, via a creative writing workshop run in the camp Shamima Begum is held in.The workshop was run by a Kurdish woman: ' The 29-year-old activist is a member of the Kurdish Women’s Movement, whose revolutionary ideology espouses the necessity of emancipating women as a way of recalibrating society. From this perspective, Evdike regarded the internees as being in need of her help, as victims of an extremist patriarchal society that had allowed women little personal choice, confining them to the roles of housewives and child breeders. Yet Evdike was also revolted by her own experiences of the war with Isis.' [[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d7c55aca-c2e7-11eb-a26e-4c086490cfe1?shareToken=ae4b283c36582267ebd13481836e279e]]

Andante57 · 05/06/2021 21:47

I think she’s changed her story - according to the Telegraph:

“She claimed she and her friends were recruited online by Isil supporters who preyed on the guilt they were feeling at seeing Muslims suffering in the Syrian conflict”

Presumably she’s been told to say this by a lawyer.

RoseRedRoseBlue · 05/06/2021 21:42

Nobody is saying she was powerless, more than she isn’t quite as culpable as suggested.

JustCallMeJulia · 05/06/2021 21:39

She was a child who was able to get herself overseas alone. She knew what she was doing.

She is still responsible for her actions and her choice. 15 doesn't make her powerless in this instance.

oopsydaisyyy · 05/06/2021 21:20

@HermioneWeasley

Yesterday was the anniversary of 19 yazidi girls being burnt alive in cages for refusing sex with their ISIS captors. This is what she travelled across Europe to join. This is what she found so attractive she threw away everything in this country to go and support.

If her disgusting medieval death cult had won, do you think she’d be feeling any remorse? Would she bollocks. She’s very sorry it didn’t work out as she’d hoped. I don’t care. She’s despicable.

she was a child

RoseRedRoseBlue · 05/06/2021 21:14

@HermioneWeasley

Yesterday was the anniversary of 19 yazidi girls being burnt alive in cages for refusing sex with their ISIS captors. This is what she travelled across Europe to join. This is what she found so attractive she threw away everything in this country to go and support.

If her disgusting medieval death cult had won, do you think she’d be feeling any remorse? Would she bollocks. She’s very sorry it didn’t work out as she’d hoped. I don’t care. She’s despicable.

“Despicable” or not, she is still our problem. We need to look far more at how this happened and why, rather than targeting the vitriol at this silly, impressionable girl.

toffeebutterpopcorn · 05/06/2021 21:12

She was getting decent grades at school so wasn’t thick.

These kids had access to the internet and could see first hand what these people they were so keen to join were doing - this was about the time a U.K. grandparent spotted her young ‘missing’ grandson in a propaganda video pressing the detonator to blow up a car of ‘enemies’. What they were doing to the Yazidis was proudly boasted about. They were running off to marry their ‘warriors’ and have a home (stolen). It was a huge adventure - but they knew.

HermioneWeasley · 05/06/2021 21:07

Yesterday was the anniversary of 19 yazidi girls being burnt alive in cages for refusing sex with their ISIS captors. This is what she travelled across Europe to join. This is what she found so attractive she threw away everything in this country to go and support.

If her disgusting medieval death cult had won, do you think she’d be feeling any remorse? Would she bollocks. She’s very sorry it didn’t work out as she’d hoped. I don’t care. She’s despicable.

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ArabellaScott · 05/06/2021 21:02

I think this passage really expresses the nuance in the article well:

'Told through the prism of Sevinaz Evdike, the Kurdish woman running a creative writing workshop in Roj camp for the detainees, The Return examines the experiences of Shamima Begum and five other Isis-affiliated women through Evdike’s own journey, as she grapples with the memory of dead family and friends killed fighting against Islamic State.

In this way, the film allows its audience to judge Shamima Begum and her companions participating in the workshop only after it has first judged itself against Evdike’s inspiring efforts to engage with those who came to her country uninvited, to join a caliphate whose borders were drawn in Kurdish blood.

Even the most choleric armchair critic of Begum might first have to wonder why Syrian Kurds, who suffered so egregiously at the hands of Islamic State and provided the core of the ground force that eventually destroyed the caliphate, are willing to open dialogue with Isis-affiliated women in Roj camp, while those so far from the Syrian killing fields are not.'

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Floisme · 05/06/2021 21:01

She was a child.

Zinco · 05/06/2021 20:19

I do have a little bit of sympathy for her as she made a very serious mistake while still a child.

If you're over 18, and you join an organisation at war with the UK, that's basically full on treason and you're an enemy in war.

Of course you should strip such people of citizenship; they have already renounced their loyalty to the country. To remove their citizenship is just giving them their own choice and what they wanted.

You can't betray your country, take the side of the enemy, lose a war, and then say you have changed your mind and want to come back to the country you betrayed.

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ArabellaScott · 05/06/2021 19:39

Yes, I'd like to see the documentary, though I suspect it won't be an easy watch.

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bitheby · 05/06/2021 19:04

I thought it was a really good and interesting article about the nuance between painting people as solely victims or perpetrators. I don't agree with stripping her of her citizenship and think she should have been brought back to the UK to be tried and rehabilitated. Not sure what it achieves leaving her in refugee camps.

I will definitely watch the documentary.