Forgetting everything but the fact an innocent baby has died

[UnexpectedButExpected]

AIBU to feel unbelievably sad that Shamima Bergum’s baby has died.

The poor mite simply didn’t have a chance in the world he was born in to.

Anyone care to dignify my question with a response?

So can you not accept that perhaps this girl's parents are in some way responsible? Does she not deserve a mother who would move heaven and earth to retrieve her?

Anyone care to dignify my question with a response?

I have

NunoGoncalves he was in the media, that's my point. People see what they want to see

Fine, but you're accusing people in the thread of reacting a certain way because she's female and non-white – and I'm saying that they're not. The news outlets are responsible for targeting this girl in particular, not the general public.

And if she has no family who feels like that for her then no one should?

Jack Letts is white, and hasn't had his citizenship revoked, hasn't had anything like the same level of outcry as Begum, and has the same views and the same kind of evidence against him.

There is no outcry about Jack Letts because people like you aren't suggesting that he is a victim and that he should be forgiven so there is no debate. Also, he is in prison in Syria so no chance of coming home anyway. It has nothing to do with him being white.

So can you not accept that perhaps this girl's parents are in some way responsible? Does she not deserve a mother who would move heaven and earth to retrieve her?

Do me a favour! Hundreds and thousands of children grow up with parents who fail them. That doesn't absolve them.

If she had stayed in the UK and got involved with a gang and committed a crime she would have been held responsible.

How is this different?

You just said you would move heaven and earth for your daughter. Which means you feel she is worthy of forgiveness, a second chance etc
Why is this girl any different? Any less worthy of such sentiments?

Look, she stole a passport and sneaked away to join IS, she was eager to be married to a “warrior” who she specified must be under 25, isn’t fazed by decapitated bodies, shows no remorse and sees the victims of the Manchester bombing as collateral damage.

And you want compassion for her. You cry all you want. I won’t.

And if she has no family who feels like that for her then no one should?

I have no sympathy for her, no. The terrorists that she chose to support have no sympathy for anyone else.

She was very happy to join them and this is a consequence of that choice.

Letts is in prison. He isn't sitting in a refugee camp pretending to be a victim. IN A REFUGEE camp fgs.
She supported people who caused the need for that refugee camp.

Absolutely no sympathy with any of these. My only sympathy lies with the refugees who were misplaced, lost families and basically everything and now they must share the camp with ISIS members. Fuck me. That's just messed up.

You just said you would move heaven and earth for your daughter. Which means you feel she is worthy of forgiveness, a second chance etc
Why is this girl any different? Any less worthy of such sentiments?

No I said if my dd had run away I would have gone immediately to try and bring her back. I would then expect the full weight of the law to have been levelled at her. I certainly wouldn't have forgiven her.

can you not accept that perhaps this girl's parents are in some way responsible?

Personally I certainly can accept this, but it's complicated by the fact that nearly every such parent instantly blames anyone - anyone at all - but themselves

We could of course wonder if they're being realistic or even honest, but then the screams would no doubt start again: "you're all bigots and are only saying that because the parents aren't white!!!"

if it was YOUR 15 year old daughter, how would you react?

I'd be wondering where the bloody hell I'd gone wrong. As soon as I'd realised she'd gone I'd have been on the next plane out not waited 4 years in the hope that other do gooders would volunteer other people's family members to risk their lives to fetch her back.

Of course if she was my daughter I’d want her back. Given that it’s not the decision of family members, I don’t see the relevance of your question though.

Who would you want to see endangered to bring her back? Your son or daughter?

If it was my 15 year old daughter I wouldn’t be living in Bangladesh demanding she be returned to England, If it was my daughter I’d be absolutely disgusted with her behaviour & I wouldn’t t be blaming everyone except myself.
As for things would have been different if she was white - Sally Jones & her son were white, they’ve been supposedly killed by a drone strike - is that the preferential treatment you mean?

Yes, why doesn't her dad look after her Instead of telling everyone else what to do.

Well, what it boils down to is that no one lives in a vacuum. Every criminal, every terrorist, will have been exposed to various factors which contribute to the person they become - just as every non-criminal and non-terrorist has too. As I’ve said multiple times on this thread, abusers are more likely to have been abused themselves as children. Murderers often have some level of dysfunction in their background.

Many children are brought up with indoctrination of one kind or another from birth. They don’t all go on to rape, torture and murder.

And thankfully criminal justice systems acknowledge that there are ages of criminal responsibility (in the U.K. far younger than Begum when she ran off to join ISIS) and also that being a girl or a woman does not mean that you aren’t responsible for your actions.

(And of course in the context of this thread which is about Begum, there is a wealth of evidence - including her own testimony- that she made choices freely, she sought out the ISIS path and does not regret being part of a murderous regime.)

Well exactly @accio. Even if one accepts she was groomed, she was not a robot and still had agency and choice over what she did. She was savvy enough to steal her sister’s passport and make her way to Syria. I’m almost 30 years older than her and wouldn’t have the first clue. She states that she enjoyed living there and her life was was she expected until it all went tits up and she ended up in the camp. There’s no evidence she’s been raped either. I agree that if she’s been married off at 15 then that’s unlawful and she probably had underage sex but underage sex at 15 isn’t necessarily rape. Of course it can be but we don’t know enough to say that with confidence here.

It would have been underage sex in the UK. The age of consent is 14 in Syria.

I’m with Weetabixandshreddies I would have gone and got her back myself. The hysterical argument about her being 15 and groomed, are you forgetting she willingly left the safety of Bethnal Green to join the Caliphate andceould she be so keen to return had ISIS not been defeated. By the way I don’t think it has been defeated. It has far too many wealthy backers.

Well her old nan wouldn’t have been charged with having underage sex here either. It took years for the grooming and abuse in Rochdale to come to court and only then because of the alternative media.

Man not Nan epic auto correct fail

It's nothing like Rochdale and it's insulting to those young women to even suggest it.

He wasn't in the media because men doing this isn't news like women doing it.

Women who [rarely] murder a man [despite lifetime of abuse - Challon] make headlines, unlike the two or three women murdered every single week, in week out, and no-one knows their names, they've never heard of them, no-one says their names, but everyone has heard of Challon because she murdered a man and is having her case reviewed on the basis of the lifetime of abuse.

It just doesn't seem to be news because itsits nothing new to say, it was a man that did this. Lots of blaming women under these regimes though. Women do not run them, men do. Little boys being trained to murder, behead, also doing it, and victims of it.