AIBU to think Shamima is not coming across well?

[HurryUpAndWait23]

I do really feel for her, she was an exploited child and went through what appeared to be repeatedly brutal experiences.

But whenever she talks, the attitude and "the world owes me" way in which she speaks is not helping her cause at all.

Something cold, hard and unrepentant about Begum.
That Western getup is just a charade.
At 15, someone knows right from wrong.

She joined ISIS. She didn't join the WI thinking that it was going to be all baking and lectures on local history, or whatever the WI do, only to find out that they were secretly plotting to take over the country. IS make it all too plain what their intentions are and how they achieve them.

@PersonaNonGarter

She will never return.

Unfortunately for her, she is the head on the spike on Tower Bridge. There to remind others not to make the same mistake.

And that’s fine with me.

Absolutely this!!

She’s a very dangerous person.

I wouldn’t put any stock in what she said now or in earlier interviews. At 15, I did some fucked up things and when I realised it was shitty instead of coming clean and apologising I doubled down and brazened it out - I especially would have done that to impress some one too. With age, I wouldn’t.

I think it’s also important to consider that she’s on a thin line here. Would like to go home but is very likely still in danger with what she does and doesn’t say over there. It’s shit.

But I think all of that is completely irrelevant anyway. She had a British citizenship so should be tried as a British citizen. It sets a very dangerous precedent to strip an individual of their citizenship, especially without even giving a fair trial to decide it first. She may spend her entire life locked up but it IS our problem to deal with.

Criminals should not be deprived of their citizenship, it is competely unacceptable.

She should be tried in a British Court. This government is dismantling democracy in this country piece by piece, and this is another step on that disgraceful path. And the Home office are unfit for purpose so I would not trust them to do anything correctly .

@VladmirsPoutine

Thing is childhood and innocence aren't usually granted / afforded to little brown girls therefore it's very easy for many to demonise SB.

As a brown girl that was born and grew up in the UK this holds true for me.

My childhood consisted of being "othered", overt racism and micro aggressions by white people who did not behave that way towards white girls.

It still happens. To every brown and black person I know. Childhood is no protection from it.

I don't think she came across well at all but even when she spoke about her children she seemed unemotional. Yes she may have been groomed but having heard what Sajid Javid said about if we knew what he knew we wouldn't let her back then there's obviously alot more to it that we don't know!

She is lying and dangerous I hope they never let her return.

@Maassi

Maassi And this is why the UK is such a racist country. Fucking hell. So white girls are groomed and brown ones can't be?

Just wow

blossomtoes-
Literally nobody has said anything so completely stupid.

@blossomties
Nice! A personal insult. Are you a woman of colour? No? Yes?

I'm brown and think I'm qualified to say this thread sickens me as it's pretty indicative of prevalent white attitudes that I come across daily.

However if my lived experience makes you think I'm stupid then you are a moron

I find all the concern for Begum while those same people show zero concern for the innocent people who were murdered, tortured and raped by ISIS sickening. Why don't they matter? Because they were born in a different country?

@VladmirsPoutine

Thing is childhood and innocence aren't usually granted / afforded to little brown girls therefore it's very easy for many to demonise SB.

What a load of shite

@todaysdilemma Excellent post of lived experience thanks 😊

She was born here, she's our problem to deal with

I wish people would stop with the little brown girl comments.
Jack Letts is white also stripped of his citizenship but no one ever raises the little white boy arguement for allowing his return.

Images of ISIS beheading hostage were seen around the world before Shamima stole a passport and got on a plane. If I recall there was one very notorious incident of an ISIS fighter eating the heart of someone they had murdered. The nature of the organisation was not a secret before she left to join them.

I can agree she was radicalised but the repeated use of the word grooming and comparisons made with Rotherham are just offensive. She was radicalised through information she actively sought on line. I believe there was evidence at the time that she had watched plenty of beheading videos.

The colour of her skin is beyond irrelevant so people need to stop playing the race card unless you are suggesting that the colour of her skin made her more susceptible to supporting a barbaric death cult which would be kind of racist. People are horrified by her actions not her race.

She is detained in a Kurd controlled camp she can't just walk out. Who do you suggest risks their life to retrieve her? Would you volunteer yourself or people you care about for the job? How do you propose she receives a fair trial in the UK? How are you planning to gather the evidence to charge her for her terrorist crimes? Maybe you think the Met could just send a few CID officers to Syria to ask locals a few questions. She would walk free as we don't have the jurisdiction to punish her for the worst of her crimes and given how unconvincing she is about having changed her views she will likely be a security threat, what then? Life long protection? Who pays?

She relinquished her British citizenship when she decided life under the caliphate would be more to her liking. She only wants to come home because ISIS have been defeated, do you think we would have heard from her again if they were now ruling Syria? She commited crimes in Syria and they have a right to decide how to deal with her. I suspect that will mean execution. Her husband reported she sewed suicide bombers into vests and was completely unmoved by a decapitated head she found in a bin so I'm not too bothered by them dispensing whatever justice they see fit. Let's not forget the ISIS fighters raping girls as young as two and discarding their bodies in the streets like rubbish.

Like others have said, I'll reserve all my sympathy for the people of Syria who have been terrorised by ISIS, I do not care what becomes of Shamima Begum as long as she never sets foot on UK soil.

@Blossomtoes Yes.

@Fraine

A groomed child at that. This idea that brown girls can’t be groomed is very damaging.

Oh whatever. No one is saying brown girls can't be groomed.

You're making excuses for someone who willingly left to join a violent cult of people who behead men, drown gays, stone women, bomb children and do unspeakable things to those who disagree with them. Things which are regularly reported on media outlets in the West.

So many people here and on previous threads calling her manipulative.

She’s not really, is she?

Manipulative would be, “now that I am a mother was a mother, I cannot believe that I did anything other than apologise for the death of a child in Manchester” etc.

Whether you think she deserves it or not, she’s been through hell now…

I don’t find her lack of emotion manipulative - I think she fails to manipulate because she can’t show emotion. Whether that’s through past trauma or current fear, who knows? But she can’t manipulate, and she can’t even gain sympathy through real NOT manipulative emotion.

As to the Western clothes and obvious nail polish… she didn’t walk into Primark and choose those. She’s being manipulated herself now - someone else is ill advising her on what to wear. I’d have gone for western, modest, scruffy - almost dirty but not over egging it. I’m no PR expert and that might have been wrong too… but I don’t understand why people think she’s manipulative.

Maassi - you sound utterly deluded. I am mixed race myself.

Having said that would you want her living next door to you? If you dont like the UK (and I think they are one of the most welcoming countries) where would be better for you I wonder? You sound like you have a massive chip on your shoulder and to excuse this women's actions because she is brown is nonsense..

Never should she return to the UK...

@Maassi Same! I've had to do a LOT of unlearning and un-conditioning.

She was a groomed 15 year old. She shouldn’t have been discarded by this country. I’m sure it would’ve been different if she was white.

At this point she’s been made an example of though and I doubt she will ever be allowed back.

@Proudboomer

I wish people would stop with the little brown girl comments. Jack Letts is white also stripped of his citizenship but no one ever raises the little white boy arguement for allowing his return.

Agreed.

I think she should be allowed to return home and be under supervision.

Aaron Campbell was only 16 when he murdered poor little Alesha MacPhail.

Was he only a child who didn't know what he was doing? Where are the people sticking up for him?

Spot on @FOJN.