The State

[Oldowl]

Anyone watching?

Yeah, shakira was quite badly written I think. She didn't come across as naive just wilfully stupid and arrogant.

But we've all met people like that. Think they are smarter than the average bear, arrogant and rude, and anyone who doesn't agree with them is sexist/racist/bigoted/bloody idiot.

One of the saddest ace 're was where the e lead (Jalal?) Was having dinner and his 'not sure want to call her - captive) told him about her life with he former 'owner'. He asked of she had been able to protect her daughter and she shook her head.

So utterly vile.

Scenes not acer!!
Male lead

Yeah I guess
I think the shakira actor was amazing. The way she conveyed her feelings with her eyes and body language was amazing. I just think she wasn't scripted very well.
The actor who played Jalal was amazing too. A very subtle performance.

There is NO one reason people, mainy young people, go/went to Syria to join Isis. At uni ( not there this year), some of the male muslim students were very, how can i put it, controlling of the public space. compared with the number of students they were few in number. most wore islamic dress,several were converts, several were west indian converts. so, for example they would fill a corridor space so other students, and staff like me, had to walk around them. i got fed up and started walking, politely with apologies, through the middle of the group, but it was rather uncomfortable and on one occasion i heard what they were saying and got involved in a rather heated exchange.young men in particular naturally want to be part of a strong group, i think?? the stronger members can have huge influence on the others

I thought the last scene with Shakira with the police threw more light on her personality than anything I had seen before and actually finally made sense of her motivation for me. Her arrogance and pig-headedness, seen in her refusal to take on board that she wasn't going to be allowed to get her son back and make amends simply by writing an apologetic newspaper article, were consistent with her having gone there in the first place despite all the things that should have made it clear it was a bad idea.
I also found that scene immensely interesting in terms of how rather than simply escaping from hell back to heaven, she has moved from one oppressive state to another. I am not saying the UK and IS have much in common, but there is the fact that the British goverment now controls her, is going to make her do things she doesn't want to do and is prepared to use custody of her son as a way to get what it wants. She is totally in the power of the force that she hated in the first place.
That also helped with understanding her motivation: when you remember how negative radicalised people feel towards the British state in the first place, it makes more sense that they would want to believe in an ideal alternative and be willing to ignore the evidence that IS isn't actually so great.
It was a very effective tragic ending for her character: her integrity is important to her, and she has lost it.
Jamal's tragedy was that despite the fact that he was a decent guy who wanted to love and help people, he ended up not only dying, but also hurting everyone he tried to help. He won his final battle in a moral sense by refusing to kill the pharmacist, but it was fruitless because not only did it lead to his own death, but the pharmacist died anyway.

It was a very powerful story.

sorry, Jalal not Jamal.

very interesting point about hatred of British society being motivation for shakira..i agree with that. the hen night out is polar opposite to girls kept firmly within family and cultural boundaries

Excellent drama though so many questions.

Re the doc she is 26 with a 10 year old. Making assumptions I imagine she's had to work very hard and maybe in isolation which (in my mind) would explain her standoffishness in part. She idealistic and not realistic.

I wonder why she didn't go to the British embassy (in Turkey?) to avoid a boat - they made the crossing look to easy IMO.

I agree that shes been badly written a longer series would have been beneficial I think.

Too add, teenage mum of evangelical christians? Unless she married early chances are she would be ostracised. Plus a violent partner? I think more depth her in particular was needed.

'I wonder why she didn't go to the British embassy (in Turkey?) to avoid a boat - they made the crossing look to easy IMO. '

Yes, good point. Perhaps she thought she would definitely get arrested if she did that but thought she stood a chance of getting through immigration undetected if she came by another route with all the holidaymakers? Seems quite naive though.

Re the crossing being too easy, I imagine most of them are straightforward and we just hear about the ones that aren't.

The violent partner certainly explains her reaction to seeing her son punching the dummy.

The director said on R4 that they were only given 4 hours to work with and it just wasn't enough time to look at why they were radicalised. That alone needed 4 hours, in my opinion. I'm not sure though whether watching people becoming radicalised wouldn't help others to be.

Yes, I'm not sure how you'd create a story trajectory about radicalisation that didn't make it seem appealing, especially if your characters were sympathetic.

I agree - all you can do is show what happens if you do go.

I found the doctor a really frustrating character. She was clearly intelligent and hard working - just being a single parent doctor in London would be really hard work. She was a feminist. Why was she surprised that she'd have to be fully covered? I know she believed what she was told about working as a doctor, but why wouldn't she do some research into the reality of this? And why on earth take her son, when she knew the chances of him being either killed or radicalised were so high? Her level of ignorance was shocking.

And yet I'm sure each of the recruits on the programme conformed to a stereotype which exists in reality. It really is grooming, isn't it?

I though it a brave and compelling - and shocking - drama. Agree with Imperial that all you can do is show what happens if you do go.

The dawning realisation on the main male character of what ISIS really meant and his underlying decency was made all the more powerful by the subtlety of his performance.

It would also have been interesting - but a separate drama - to have a Rochdale type drama showing the grooming of the bright 13 - 15 year old school girls who went to Syria and became jihadi brides.

Yes, I would love to see that.

I would love to see how the grooming happens, but it can be difficult, can't it? With Rochdale we could see the sleaziness of the guys and the poverty of the girls etc. There's a young woman from Glasgow, Aqsa Mahmood, who was radicalised - she came from a good background, was studying at Glasgow University etc and yet she's been really shocking in terms of what she's done in Syria to try to get young British girls to go over there. If we saw what was going on here, I'm sure we'd see good looking Syrian guys telling her how great it was going to be - and she's certainly saying the same, though for all we know she might be dead now.

I think they should have had a six or eight hour series, showing the background of each of the four people, then showing how the reality differed from what they were told. By the way, I didn't realise it was the same director who did Wolf Hall.

It was excellent, very timely and powerful. I was glad that the guy pointed out to the doctor what a crap mother she had been, that really needed to be said to her, her ignorance and arrogance was shocking, I did think Issac was going to tell on his mother, but it seemed that his love and loyalty to her won out, he still had some humanity left, as did Jalal.

Thank you for that link Adalind, interesting to read that, it fills in the gaps.

I can sort of get how the others might get groomed due to youth/romanticism/stupidity/othering in the UK but Doc was intriguing because she breaks all stereotypes really and not always in a good way. She was intelligent but not worldly, little critical thinking skills yet was able to eloquently verbalise the vision for an IS state. She seemed very in tune with her son, made decisions with him as an equal at times yet had little regard for his overall welfare.
She is a real enigma but the character blog was useful (thank you) as it kind of explains some of why she is how she is.

Re the ease of the boat crossings, I felt it was implied that you could rock up to the coast and jump on a dinghy in the same way as you do ferry. In reality many of the migrants have to duck and dive from guards, pay off smugglers and get collected part way across. They left with only their passports and getting to the coast crossing point would have taken a long time I think?

I think it was very powerful, I would have liked to see more of the circumstance that led to the individuals motivation, but not the grooming itself IYKWIM and thank you Imperial for highlighting the time limitations, with that in mind I think they did an excellent job.

I fully agree with Countess’s entire post. I found her arrogance and entitlement astounding. I wonder if it was due to growing up powerless – (strict?) evangelical parents straight into abusive partner at age 15/16 isn’t unrealistic, though the career bit does not quite fit.

Yes, I wonder what has happened to Aqsa Mahmood (I couldn't remember her name). I presume she still has an active Twitter (?) account somewhere but whether it's actually her or not.

Admitting you got it wrong, the difficulty of leaving and the consequences for you when you get back must make some not bother trying to leave. But, if I can think of that, it's difficult to think the educated doctor (and all the doctors who went) wouldn't have thought about that as well.

LukeCagesWife When did they say/imply she was "... teenage mum of evangelical christians? Unless she married early chances are she would be ostracised. Plus a violent partner?"

The actress, Ony Uhiara, was born 1978/79, so is about 38, did they say she was meant to be 26?