Shamima Begum - misogyny at its finest?

[Schmoana]

Just saw the interview on GMB. It has struck me for a long time that there are hundreds of male ISIS fighters who are British citizens who have been allowed back and prosecuted where appropriate, even without grooming being a factor, and having been directly involved in killing. It’s hardly even reported. But this one woman has been vilified by the British people and British media, and made the figurehead of all that is wrong with ISIS. Her British citizenship has been stripped for populism.

Why is this one woman being held to different standards? What is the difference here between her and the hundreds of men who have been accepted back?

Ideally there should be an international tribunal to try ISIS members, in particular foreign fighters. But efforts to establish one are not getting anywhere.

Yes, Shamima was young, she was radicalised -- so were a huge number of ISIS members. Extremist organisations have always relied on young and impressionable recruits. For that matter, national armies of all kinds have relied on young and impressionable recruits. Do we say all young people who join up to fight somewhere are not responsible for their actions?

I think in this case it's hard to accept that a young woman would willingly engage in atrocities, so she must have been coerced or brainwashed. But the sad truth is that ordinary people of all kinds commit atrocities in war. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I do hope she gets a proper trial, but I think we have to be careful about reducing culpability for war crimes.

I do agree with you OP that the media coverage of this case has been awful.

I think it's partly to deter other DDs from following her path.

And I would guess muslim parents in the UK are very supportive of this.

I agree. Staying where she is would be the best deterrent. The very thought of her becoming some sort of media star giving interviews. Just no.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Both Begum and Bangladesh have said she never had dual citizenship, though.

Not the case. She has Bangladesh citizenship by birth from her mother. All that Begum has said is she’s never owned a Bangladesh passport or been there. The only way to get rid of a citizenship you acquire by birth is by formally renouncing it, which Begum had not done. And as Boris Johnson well knows as he was born with US citizenship and had to renounce it.

That's really ignorant. Just because it's the case in the USA doesn't mean it's the case everywhere. Why do people imagine that? It's not automatic everywhere, you have to apply in some places, for example, Australia.

I am also pretty cynical of “if you’d seen what we’d seen” narrative. There are many rapist and murders walking about because they can’t or won’t be prosecuted, and that’s before we get into any black flights or actions of officially sanctioned. No doubt there’s more to the story but she’s no an exception.
Also her speech and gestures to me reminded me of people I’ve known who where vulnerable due to learning difficulties or trauma.

@Sunshineboo

There is a really good podcast called red handed which has covered this. I found it really eye-opening and I thought about it a lot. I would recommend any of you go and give it a listen, gives lots of information about Isis I'm up there actually about and hell people get recruited into it.

Overall it's one of my favourite podcast anyway, but that was a really good episode

I came on to recommend Redhanded too, they took the time to cover this brilliantly. I had no idea how segregated and dangerous the camps are and how women enforce the rules with violence. I do agree with you OP, I think there is misogyny at play here. I don’t much like her and I think she was an idiot but I also think a lot of how she presents herself is due to trauma. I feel sorry for her family most of all.

Boris Johnson was born in NYC - that's why he has US citizenship.

In 2016 a 15 year old schoolgirl who was known as Gemma (not her true name)ran away with her teacher Jeremy Forrest to France she was treated as a grooming victim and he was given a prison sentence.
15 year old Shamina is treated as if she made the decision and was mature enough that she wasn't a victim

had, rather

@Theunamedcat

If she is refusing to name names I would doubt her sincerity to be honest

You realise she is in a camp in Syria? Naming names might get her killed.

She was a child, and she is British born and bred. She doesn't have Bangladeshi nationality, why should they have to deal with her? Perhaps she is entitled to it, but Bangladesh has said she is not a Bangladeshi citizen, so she isn't. Britain should take responsibility for her, why should the Syrians?

She was brainwashed and groomed.
If I had a realisation I was wrong, and I was living in a camp with fellow ISIS people in a foreign country, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be denouncing them on TV to go and get stabbed or worse back at my tent. But bring me back to my country and I would sing like a bird.
But then I have no intention to think joining people in murdering others is ever right, so I can’t contemplate what went through her head to ever think this was right.

I thought the interview was disgusting. They way they asked about her dead children and their deaths was chilling. She's a human being which seemed to escape Richard Madeley.

I wonder why a brown 15 year old is blamed when she has been groomed when white girls are all victims.

I also wonder about the "luxury beliefs" and doing wearing luxury goods links.

We know wealth signalling is now done with beliefs that harm the vulnerable and poor and not the wealthy and privileged.

We know there is little opportunity unless you attend the Met gala to peacock to others the past year and a half.

I find her clothes choices over the years as interesting as I found her body language holding her baby.

@Starisnotanumber

In 2016 a 15 year old schoolgirl who was known as Gemma (not her true name)ran away with her teacher Jeremy Forrest to France she was treated as a grooming victim and he was given a prison sentence. 15 year old Shamina is treated as if she made the decision and was mature enough that she wasn't a victim

you can say that, but did Gemma do any/all the things Shamima is accused of?

There’s a really interesting channel 4 documentary on her and other women from varying other countries who have been stripped of their citizenship in the same camp. I watched it really wanting to empathise, but in all honesty not one of them came across as remorseful. They were saddened by who it had turned out for them and scared for themselves, but I didn’t detect any remorse for their initial decisions. Mostly they still communicate and wait for their jailed husbands too. The documentary should lots of their social media stuff and it was disgusting. There were women from US, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium. Most had children. It felt to me that they saw their children as their ticket out of the camp.l and their sense of entitlement was astounding.

Its a harsh reality that someone can be impacted to hugely by a decision made so young and I do believe there was an element of trimming here, but remember this is the same person that laughed and felt ‘nothing’ when faced with a severed head.

If she has committed crimes bring her back and prosecute her. We cannot just decide to dump British citizens on other countries. She was born here and is our problem.

@ElliottSmithsfingers

She can rot in hell for all I care. I find any sympathy for her absolutely abhorrent, similarly to her views, which I guess she's only putting aside opportunistically.

Yup.

As far as is known Gemma just ran off with her teacher had sex with him and said she loved him.
The point I was making is that 2 young girls age 15 ran away while under the influence of others.
If Gemma was a victim and brought home while protesting Shamina was also a victim who should be brought home .
If she has committed crimes as an adult then she should be treated as others would be by the court system

@lescompagnonsdeloue

You sound pretty ignorant yourself because you’re comparing the wrong aspects. First off, Begum had Bangladesh citizenship at birth by descent, which is not the case with Boris Johnson who received US citizenship at birth by being born on US soil. However, in both their cases they have this citizenship until they renounce it formally. Begum has not done this, but Boris has. How do I know? Because I’ve looked up the citizenship laws for both countries which apparently you have not done.

@ancientgran
I wonder why a brown 15 year old is blamed when she has been groomed when white girls are all victims.

Please name me one white jihadist female that was treated as a victim? The only one I know of was a full adult, Sally Jones, and she was on the US/U.K. kill list, which resulted in her being assassinated by a drone strike (which also killed her innocent child).

Well, the alternative is to ask how and why a child born and brought up in the UK felt so alienated and 'other' that she was a target for grooming and brainwashing by terrorists.
Far easier to say nothing about being an ethnic minority in the UK could ever lead a child to be vulnerable to the tactics of extremists and therefore she was already a monster at what? 10? 12? Or at 15 when she had already got to the point of actually getting on a plane.

Because she didn't wake up one morning at 15, have a quick email exchange and hop on a plane. This was happening for years and all her experiences led to that moment.

So much research and understanding and explaining of such things as cults brainwashing their members, of Stockholm syndrome even things like trauma bonding in abusive relationships. Lots of empathy and understanding.

Yet here we have a person who by the age of 15 had already been so brainwashed that she left to join Isis. How old was she when that poison started being dripped into her ear? What was her childhood like that she truly felt fucking Isis was the better option!

What she did was horrendous. But what led her to that point was also horrendous and all the focus should not be on the former with none on the latter.

I really believe that the rush to see misogyny and racism even in cases such as this (basically where the person in question is objectively a truly revolting specimen) does a profound disservice to both the feminist and anti-racist causes.

I just watched six minutes from one of the two GMB videos on YouTube, I couldn't carry on. All the hair touching, peacock clothes, look at me nails and transference and she is loving the media, what a total narcissist.

If things hadn't gone tits up for the ISIS caliphate she would still be happily going about her jihadi terrorist life. At 15 she was groomed and if she was still a child she should be brought back immediately of course. But she became an adult who, rather than being horrified by what was going on, bought completely into the whole ideology - totally unfazed by beheadings. I'm happy for her to rot where she is, the same as if she were male.