Urging British Muslim women to stop relatives from fighting in Syria

[MilestoneMum]

This news story made me wonder if women from any other communities have been pinpointed in a similar way?

Just thinking if anything similar wa said to Irish Catholics re the IRA?

I remember a programme about the fighting in the former Yugoslavia, in which Karadzic's mother gave her opinion as "no-one ever asks the mothers"

That's not quite the same point though. Yes, I agree very much with the idea that it is right to avoid radicalisation, and that fighting in foreign wars can be a formative experience (again, the role of training camps in Bosnia provides an all too recent example of how it can present a danger beyond the immediate conflict). But women are not responsible for the conduct of their adult children, nor are they the only formative influence. Yes, send a strong message to parents, partners, siblings. Yes appealing to mothers is part of that. So as a strand of a wider anti-radicalisation measure, fine.

I've heard a few interviews from Syria with British Asian men who have gone out to fight. Notable how many of them said that their families had no idea where they were because, if they'd been honest, their parents would be furious. Also notable how utterly naïve they are with very romantic ideas of fighting on the side of righteousness. In echoes of bored young men joining up in 1914 and the Spanish Civil War, they see it as a big adventure. What few of them seem to appreciate is how useless they are to the rebels. Because they don't speak the language and have no experience, they are more of a hindrance than a help.

They do need to have their eyes opened to the reality but, as they are already deliberately going behind their families' backs, I doubt mobilising mothers will have much of an effect.

Cogito That is exactly what this situation reminds me of young British men going off to fight in the Spanish Civil war with romantic notions that were soon shattered. Once over there these young men will likely find it inpossible to leave again.

Impossible.