Update: Shamima Begum has opened up about joining ISIS, saying she was 'young and naive', wanted to help people in Syria and didn't want to be the friend left behind. Last year, her story divided the country when she first spoke to news outlets about her experience. Here, Tahmina Begum questioned the racial undertones of the conversation...
Shamima Begum, also known as one of the four Bethnal Green schoolgirls who shocked the UK by leaving for Syria in 2015, has been trending on Twitter for days now. Last week, her interview with The Times, in which she said she had no regrets about joining Islamic State four years ago went viral almost instantly.
She has since spoken to Sky News and, when asked if she felt she had made a mistake travelling to Syria said: ‘in a way, yes, but I don’t regret it because it’s changed me as a person.’
This, as you would expect, has been shortened down to make provocative headlines like:
Shamima Begum: ISIS bride gives shock interview ‘I don’t regret it.’
Over the weekend she gave birth to a baby boy in the al-Hawl refugee camp in north-eastern Syria. She is now desperate to return to the UK because since living there she has lost two children and fears for her newborn’s safety.
She has since said she thinks that air strikes on the Islamic State in Syria 'justified' the Manchester Arena bombing.
As you’d expect, people’s reactions to this are more than a bit mixed. There has been nothing but heated debate about whether or not she should be able to return. It’s a question that seems to have divided the country.
Many want her stripped of her citizenship (perhaps they don’t know that she was born here or maybe they don’t care). Some want her thrown in prison. Others think she should be questioned rigorously as long as it’s anywhere but on British soil.
The Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, has said he ‘will not hesitate to prevent’ her return, meanwhile, Hanif Qadir, a senior expert with the government’s own counter-extremism Prevent programme has called for her to be allowed to return.
By focussing so much on whether or not Begum regrets leaving the UK to join Islamic State, I can’t help but feel we’re missing a very important part of this story. She was 15 when she left after being groomed online in her earlier teens.
On arrival in Syria she was quickly married off within 10 days to an Islamic State fighter. As a result, she has had three children (two of whom are now dead) by the time she was 19.
When you watch Begum’s interviews it’s striking that her voice is monotone, emotionless. Her statements are contradictory. She’s clearly desperate to come home but she’s also unrelenting.
None of this makes sense outside without context and that context is that first, she was groomed and then, she was radicalised. We know thatISIS target impressionable youths with a sophisticated propaganda machine. We have to ask ourselves what conditions allow a 15-year-old to feel like it’s normal to go to a country she had never been and marry someone she’d never met?
She has spoken about being abused, losing babies and - something that I personally can’t stop thinking about - how desensitised she was to see a head in a bin.
Last Friday, unable to stop thinking about the situation and frustrated that the conversation online was becoming so overtly racist, I asked what I thought was a straightforward question:
“Wondering what people’s responses would be like if Shamima Begum was white and not a working-class girl from Bethnal Green”.
Would we be more concerned about her baby and use the words “mental health”? Would we focus more on the role of Islamic State men in all this? Would there be less vitriol towards her and more compassion? Would the extent of her Brit-ishness still be part of the conversation?
Now, I’m not saying for a moment that I don’t feel conflicted about Begum. I’m not saying that I definitely think she should be able to come back - I don’t. On the one hand, I feel compassion for a young woman who certainly seems to have been groomed. On the other, I think she should be held accountable for her actions as young women do know their own minds.
But either way, I do think that responses to her situation would be different if she were white - and I tweeted as much.
As with so many complicated situations, perhaps it’s possible that two things can be true at once here. It can be true that Begum was groomed, that she has experienced trauma and it can also be true that she should face consequences for her actions.
After I tweeted about Begum, I started receiving racist abuse myself. In fact, I’m still receiving it. It’s coming in the form of replies on Twitter, DMs on Instagram and emails. I’ve received 20 detailed rape and death threats and been told my family should go back to Syria (we’re not even from Syria FYI). I’ve also been asked if I’m defending Begum because we have a similar last name, which is like saying everyone who shared the surname Smith is related.
On Good Morning Britain, Danny Dyer asked exactly the same question as me about the whole thing: ‘What is that about? Who is there to guide her, talk to her? Why is she so lost within her soul that she thinks that’s the answer to go to Syria?’ he said. And, similarly, a white journalist, Rebecca Reid, posted an almost identical tweet to mine.
Reid has received barely any backlash and I imagine nobody is asking Dyer whether he’s secretly related to Begum.
The acerbic vitriol I’ve encountered for daring to point out the complexity of Begum’s case is case in point. It’s ironic that by questioning the implicit racial undertones of the coverage of her story I myself have become a target of such hate.
There’s no doubt that difficult questions need to be asked: what happens if she comes back to Britain? Should she be prosecuted? If so, what for? Would she go straight into a Prevent programme? Why did she leave in the first place? As Baroness Sal Brinton, president of the Lib Dems, has asked: at what point do child protection laws kick in? How do we stop young people falling prey to terrorists who wish to radicalise them in the future?
Shamima Begum’s situation is complex. There’s also a baby involved. It’s understandable that so many of us feel conflicted about it. In fact, it would be weird if we didn’t. But, as long as we allow racism to creep into the conversation, we’ll never get anywhere because this isn't about race or religion, it's about extremism.