Life is trundling
along without anything of particular interest to report.
So
meanwhile I think this is worthwhile reading: a well-argued article by Anthony
Loyd in the Times this morning, (therefore behind a pay-wall) which made me
change my mind about Shamima Begum, the Isis bride he interviewed about a week
ago in her refugee camp. The decision by the Home secretary to revoke her British
citizenship was opportunism, designed simply to pander to the national mood...
Twelve
hours before she fell into the eye of a social, legal and political storm,
almost nothing that Shamima Begum told me was of particular surprise.
Sitting together for 90 minutes, one-to-one, in the yard of the al-Hawl refugee
camp that afternoon a week ago, she spoke very much like every other member of
a radical Islamic militant group I had ever met.
Her lack of remorse? Her lack of regret? The
failure to apologise? Her acceptance of the beheadings of journalists and aid
workers?
I was not
surprised by any of it, and nor should anyone else be. After four years living
in the so-called caliphate, with no access to the outside world beyond that
given to her by her Dutch Isis husband, Ms Begum behaved and spoke in
the precise and predictable manner of any other indoctrinated member of Islamic
State, among whose devotees she still lives at al-Hawl.
To expend
anger over her point of view is a waste of energy. To expect different is
naive. Over the past 25 years I have met jihadists in Bosnia, Chechnya,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. They always sound the same.
Moreover,
far from being removed from the thrall of the Isis death cult, the young
British woman radicalised as a 15-year-old girl continues to live kettled within its confines. Most of the
40,000 people in al-Hawl camp belong to Isis families, and discipline is
rigidly enforced there by foreign members of al-Khansaa, the all-female Isis morality police
who burn down tents and beat women accused of transgression in the camp.
So not
only will Ms Begum’s capabilities for individual thought, reason and feeling
have been stunted by spending so long in Isis territory at such an influential
age, she also lacks the liberty to speak freely even if she wanted to.
Yet
unlike Sajid Javid, the home secretary, who has chosen to surf the national
mood of rage towards the former Bethnal Green schoolgirl by revoking her British citizenship, I believe there
is every reason to repatriate, investigate and rehabilitate — not banish — Ms
Begum.
Aside
from the specific legalities and moralities regarding her status as a minor
when she entered Syria, buried within the rote-like repetitions of Isis
vernacular that she used when speaking to me, Ms Begum also showed traits
suggesting she would be an ideal candidate for a de-radicalisation programme.
Shamima
Begum was found last week by Anthony Loyd among 40,000 inhabitants of the
al-Hawl campGetty Images
Though
much of the British media has collaborated with the popular fury, focusing on
Ms Begum’s apparent inability to express regret or remorse, rushing to judge
her on this basis, in reality the 19-year-old woman displayed considerable
evidence of self-doubt and individual thought, despite the constraints of her
circumstances.
The details
of our meeting need a brief resume, as they were unique, not just for the
amount of time and total privacy they afforded, but also because it was her
first exposure to the outside world since she entered Syria in 2015; indeed,
her first time alone.
We met in
a reception room at al-Hawl early last Wednesday afternoon. Ms Begum entered
the room in the company of another Isis wife, a Canadian called Amy Lucia
Vasconez, 34, the widowed mother of two small boys.
A Syrian
camp administrator and two foreign aid workers were in the room, as well as my
interpreter. I asked for total privacy to conduct the interview and then left
the room with both Isis women and moved to sit with them in a corner of the
yard outside. No one else was present. After ten minutes Amy Vasconez also
left. I continued speaking with Ms Begum for nearly an hour. She was reluctant
at that stage for the interview to be taped, although later she agreed. The
last 22 minutes of our conversation was recorded. The preceding hour and the
final five minutes were not.
There are
methods for interviewing radicals. Disassociation is a prime necessity for the
interviewer: there is no point, for example, in allowing emotion or contempt to
cloud the interview. I am not there to judge the interviewee. I am there to
extract information and measure the likely extent of their radicalisation.
The need
to find common ground early in the conversation is another requirement. I met
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, the two alleged members of the so-called
Beatles Isis cell, in a jail in Syria last year. Despite their alleged
involvement in torture and murder we managed to communicate over the shared
ground of the Golborne Road in west London, near where we all had lived, and so
we recapped on fish and chips, police and thieves. Sometimes we laughed
together too. At one point I recalled being shot while a hostage in Syria and
they cried “sobering, sobering”, trilling with delight.
“How much
do you think you’d have been worth if you came into Islamic State’s hands?”
Kotey had grinned.
“More
than you are now!” I replied and we shared a good laugh at our reversed
circumstances, loathing each other all the while.
I
certainly did not loathe Shamima Begum. In essence, she was a classic victim
turned potential perpetrator: the groomed minor sat before me as a radicalised
young adult. Despite her predictable arrogance and didactic manner, her aura
was primarily that of a confused and vulnerable young London woman. Most of the
time we were together it seemed too that despite her outward composure she was
in a state of grief and shock. Alone, frightened, she wanted someone to speak
to. All I had to do was listen, coax and engage.
She spoke
repeatedly and in anger over her husband’s six-and-a-half month imprisonment
and torture in an Isis jail over spying charges. She talked also of the
hypocrisy, cruelty and oppression within the organisation.
“I am
scared,” she said. “I am so confused. I’m really naive.
“There’s
so much oppression and corruption going on [within Isis] that I don’t really think
they deserve the victory. Dawlah [Islamic State] has actually killed Muslims.
People that have fought for them, they’ve killed. And for what? So you say you
kill the non-Muslims and take care of the Muslims, but they don’t do that.”
“My
husband said that while he was in [an Isis] prison there were men that had been
tortured so badly that they were like ‘I’m just going to admit to being a spy
so they can kill me’.”
These are
extraordinary remarks for an Isis devotee to make, and suggest that within the
mental confines placed upon her by the so-called caliphate there lurks an
independently minded young woman who with the right help may be able to emerge
from her radicalised state.
Indeed,
Ms Begum is likely to be one of the most suitable adult candidates for
rehabilitation of the scores of British adults who joined Isis and are believed
to be in custody in northern Syria.
From a
practical point of security, of course, Britain’s decision not to repatriate
its Isis fighters, their wives and children from Syria is nonsensical. It is
hypocritical too, as the public policy is a reversal of what has already been
going on in private.
Since
2012, the UK has allowed about 400 British members of Islamic State and Jabhat
Fateh al-Sham, once al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Syria, to return home. The majority
of them have been male fighters. That Mr Javid has now chosen in public to
revoke the citizenship of a young woman from Bethnal Green who was
indoctrinated by Isis as a minor is an opportunistic decision made purely to
pander to national mood, and has no foot in national security considerations.
Indeed,
if the home secretary were to make his decisions based upon security, then he
would push for the prompt repatriation from Syria of every single British Isis
member, including Kotey and Elsheikh. The current situation, whereby more than
900 foreign fighters and nearly 3,000 foreign family members from 49 countries
are cooped up in camps alongside thousands of Syrian and Iraqi Isis members in
one of the most unstable parts of the Middle East is unsustainable; a calamity
waiting to happen.
Yet so
far, in the week since Ms Begum’s story emerged, little evidence of reasoned,
informed consideration and debate has appeared. We would do well to realise
that victory against Isis will be measured in no small part by our ability to
have the confidence in our own legal system and values in dealing with British
citizens who joined the jihadists.
If our
institutions and sense of worth cannot deal fairly and appropriately with a
runaway schoolgirl from Bethnal Green, who may well be more deserving of rescue
and rehabilitation than hatred and condemnation, then we will indeed have
become a very little England.
