Shamima Begum, IS teen wants to come back to the UK

[Silva]

It would be foolish to assume that the IS women are just brood mares, as many Yazidi have testified that they were treated worse by the women than the men.

I never said she was a good person/innocent. Lock her forever for all I care, but Britain has a legal responsibility to do that if the Kurdish or Syrian authorities don't want to keep her.

 

[Kag]

And yet it was completely within his power to make a string of decisions that could have saved that baby. He didn't and the baby died.

This is entirely speculative. Babies dying in these camps is normal, sadly. And the baby is in that camp because of her mother.

If you had to rank the order of blame attributed to all involved then Sajid Javid is very far down the list. Taking a pop at him is easy because he’s a Tory politician and working people think it’s fair game to blame them for the misgivings and failings of others. This isn’t always fair, and certainly not in this case.

Now, if we were to criticise Theresa May, among others in government, for allowing the spread of Wahhabism throughout UK mosques then we’d be heading towards a more sensible, mature debate.

 

[Red Defence]

Blaming the government is standard fare for some. The families of these 3 girls blamed the government and the school for them leaving. They naturally didn’t attribute any blame to themselves.

 

[RedTiger]

This is entirely speculative. Babies dying in these camps is normal, sadly. And the baby is in that camp because of her mother.

If you had to rank the order of blame attributed to all involved then Sajid Javid is very far down the list. Taking a pop at him is easy because he’s a Tory politician and working people think it’s fair game to blame them for the misgivings and failings of others. This isn’t always fair, and certainly not in this case.

Now, if we were to criticise Theresa May, among others in government, for allowing the spread of Wahhabism throughout UK mosques then we’d be heading towards a more sensible, mature debate.

The one at the very bottom of the list of culpability is the baby. No child should carry the sins of their parents or pay a price for it.

 

[NinjaFletch]

This is entirely speculative. Babies dying in these camps is normal, sadly. And the baby is in that camp because of her mother.

If you had to rank the order of blame attributed to all involved then Sajid Javid is very far down the list. Taking a pop at him is easy because he’s a Tory politician and working people think it’s fair game to blame them for the misgivings and failings of others. This isn’t always fair, and certainly not in this case.

Now, if we were to criticise Theresa May, among others in government, for allowing the spread of Wahhabism throughout UK mosques then we’d be heading towards a more sensible, mature debate.

Exactly, you're right. Babies dying in these camps is normal. So if the government hadn't have embarked on a policy that ensured this baby spent its entire life in a camp it might not have died.

I'm not even sure we need to couch this debate in terms of the wider debate about Shamima Begum. The UK government has embarked on a policy of taking people out of camps in the past, and you could easily make a case that they should have offered to take the baby whilst the legal arguments about her play out.

 

[Red Defence]

Exactly, you're right. Babies dying in these camps is normal. So if the government hadn't have embarked on a policy that ensured this baby spent its entire life in a camp it might not have died.

I'm not even sure we need to couch this debate in terms of the wider debate about Shamima Begum. The UK government has embarked on a policy of taking people out of camps in the past, and you could easily make a case that they should have offered to take the baby whilst the legal arguments about her play out.

She was asked if she was willing to let the baby be taken to the UK and she refused.

 

[NinjaFletch]

She was asked if she was willing to let the baby be taken to the UK and she refused.

Was she asked it or offered it?

 

[Red Defence]

Was she asked it or offered it?

Can’t remember...it was an interview she gave a few days after it’s birth. But her answer was “No”.
(Think she was asked if she’d be prepared to.)

 

[hobbers]

Exactly, you're right. Babies dying in these camps is normal. So if the government hadn't have embarked on a policy that ensured this baby spent its entire life in a camp it might not have died.

I'm not even sure we need to couch this debate in terms of the wider debate about Shamima Begum. The UK government has embarked on a policy of taking people out of camps in the past, and you could easily make a case that they should have offered to take the baby whilst the legal arguments about her play out.

You're not appreciating the differences in a refugee camp in a safe place and one in a not-very-safe place.

There was no way any UK government was going to put people in harms way to get her out of that camp. Would have been political suicide.

 

[Silva]

You're not appreciating the differences in a refugee camp in a safe place and one in a not-very-safe place.

There was no way any UK government was going to put people in harms way to get her out of that camp. Would have been political suicide.

It's in a region that has been under SDF control for 4 years and close to safe borders, it's not a battleground or surrounded by battlegrounds.

 

[Red Defence]

Usually when someone is in trouble abroad their family either send them money or go out there to try and help them. Have any of her family gone out there? Saw an interview with her father and he was in Bangladesh, blaming the government. Seemed rather distant from it all.

 

[NinjaFletch]

Can’t remember...it was an interview she gave a few days after it’s birth. But her answer was “No”.
(Think she was asked if she’d be prepared to.)

Which is an important distinction. Clearly she's not a very smart person, and has been through a lot (objectively speaking, I know it's self-inflicted) who was talking about seeing heads in bins a few days before as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The birth of that baby was almost certainly the best thing that had happened to her in over a year, of course she wasn't going to be jumping for joy at the idea of being hypothetically separated from it. I suspect she lived under the delusion that she could go and live a normal life with it back in Britain. She may well have acted differently if a tangible offer had been made and once she had been told that there was no circumstance she could keep the baby if she came back with it.

At any rate, I think it's slightly moot. When social services fail to prevent a child dying in this country because they chose not to step in we don't proclaim that they are blameless because the (clearly unfit) parent wouldn't have given them up.

You're not appreciating the differences in a refugee camp in a safe place and one in a not-very-safe place.

There was no way any UK government was going to put people in harms way to get her out of that camp. Would have been political suicide.

Yep, you're right. One of them has journalists that can come and go freely, the other doesn't. Which one is she in again? The real reason, I suspect, that there was no attempt by the government to get the baby is because creating a myth that the camps are so incredibly dangerous that they can't get people out is a convenient cover for that fact that they don't want to.

 

[Silva]

Yep, you're right. One of them has journalists that can come and go freely, the other doesn't. Which one is she in again? The real reason, I suspect, that there was no attempt by the government to get the baby is because creating a myth that the camps are so incredibly dangerous that they can't get people out is a convenient cover for that fact that they don't want to.

That's a good point, the hell kinda cowards are our government if they won't go the same place as an ITV1 crew

 

[Kag]

The one at the very bottom of the list of culpability is the baby. No child should carry the sins of their parents or pay a price for it.

I agree entirely.

 

[hobbers]

Yep, you're right. One of them has journalists that can come and go freely, the other doesn't. Which one is she in again? The real reason, I suspect, that there was no attempt by the government to get the baby is because creating a myth that the camps are so incredibly dangerous that they can't get people out is a convenient cover for that fact that they don't want to.

It's not even necessarily about the danger, although it's still a perfectly valid point to say that no Brit, be they officials, soldiers, diplomats or whoever else, should be put in a risky situation for the sake of Begum.

Seems kinda stupid talking about the "ease" at which British journalists might move through SDF controlled regions, and even into the hot spots, because with any state actor it's going to be a massively different kettle of fish.

 

[Red Defence]

Which is an important distinction. Clearly she's not a very smart person, and has been through a lot (objectively speaking, I know it's self-inflicted) who was talking about seeing heads in bins a few days before as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The birth of that baby was almost certainly the best thing that had happened to her in over a year, of course she wasn't going to be jumping for joy at the idea of being hypothetically separated from it. I suspect she lived under the delusion that she could go and live a normal life with it back in Britain. She may well have acted differently if a tangible offer had been made and once she had been told that there was no circumstance she could keep the baby if she came back with it.

At any rate, I think it's slightly moot. When social services fail to prevent a child dying in this country because they chose not to step in we don't proclaim that they are blameless because the (clearly unfit) parent wouldn't have given them up.

She wasn’t living under the delusion that she could come back and live with her child in Britain. At that time she already knew that her citizenship had been revoked. The reason that she wasn’t fazed by heads in bins is because they were nothing, they didn’t matter, they were infidels...you know, infidels..like the people in the UK.

Why you’re quoting social services I don’t know, they work in the UK not Syria. There are countless children out there that are presumably British by birth but once they and their parents are out of the country they are not our responsibility. Yes, they are essentially British citizens but it’s not our responsibility to ensure that they are doing the right thing by their families, nor is it our responsibility to interfere in their lives. She chose to live in another country, she’s not had an unfortunate time on holiday.

 

[iluvoursolskjær]

Sorry guys missed your posts.

You're omitting the points about joining a terrorist organisation, sympathising with the terrorist attack in Manchester, and showing no sign of disowning the IS ideology. If a white girl did the same things then absolutely I'd have the same attitude. Would the narrative in the press be the same? - who knows, but my guess is it would.

I struggle to see where this is a race issue though...

If a white girl went off aged 15 to join a radical terrorist organisation, mothered children to the members of such organisation then wanted to return when it all went tits up then I'd have the same attitude that she shouldn't get anywhere near the UK.

My point of contention in this thread has always been around the issue of citizenship and my angle has been quite extensively covered by posts from @Zarlak and @Silva so I won't delve in it much as I'll just be regurgitating things they've already articulated very well. But to just quickly conclude what I was getting at last night, she is not a dual national and Bangladesh have unequivocally stated that she has never stepped a foot in Bangladesh and will never do so in the future. She is as British as the 'White widows' our government is pursuing to bring to British justice; revoking her citizenship in these conditions were nothing but a political tool, but more concerning is what its' undercurrent actually means as well as the precedent it sets. I think it was @africanspur who mentioned the aspect of British citizenship becoming akin to a tiered system, and whether it makes it an uglier conversation bringing in race or not - it is indeed a factor by default for this reason alone.

Speaking of ugly, playing politics with this girl and her citizenship [especially in our Brexit climate], subsequently letting an innocent child die in the process, is fugly.

 

[NinjaFletch]

It's not even necessarily about the danger, although it's still a perfectly valid point to say that no Brit, be they officials, soldiers, diplomats or whoever else, should be put in a risky situation for the sake of Begum.

Seems kinda stupid talking about the "ease" at which British journalists might move through SDF controlled regions, and even into the hot spots, because with any state actor it's going to be a massively different kettle of fish.

Yes, but it was your 'stupid' point about the danger, not mine.

 

[NinjaFletch]

She wasn’t living under the delusion that she could come back and live with her child in Britain. At that time she already knew that her citizenship had been revoked. The reason that she wasn’t fazed by heads in bins is because they were nothing, they didn’t matter, they were infidels...you know, infidels..like the people in the UK.

Why you’re quoting social services I don’t know, they work in the UK not Syria. There are countless children out there that are presumably British by birth but once they and their parents are out of the country they are not our responsibility. Yes, they are essentially British citizens but it’s not our responsibility to ensure that they are doing the right thing by their families, nor is it our responsibility to interfere in their lives. She chose to live in another country, she’s not had an unfortunate time on holiday.

There seems to be two fundamental misunderstandings here which sum up my reply to your posts. Firstly, you seem to be struggling with the concept of a delusion. I'm not saying it is t realistic outcome for her, I'm saying that she could cling on to belief that it is.

Secondly,I'm not 'quoting' social services. I am making a comparison between two comparable examples.

 

[Andy_Cole]

A 15 year old girl gets groomed and taken advantage of by R Kelly and we call her a victim.
Another 15 year old girl gets groomed and goes to Syria we call her a terrorist instead of a victim.

Double standards?

 

[SwansonsTache]

Yeah, being a victim of sexual abuse is totally comparable to joining and being a breeding vessel for a genocidal, mass raping death cult.

 

[horsechoker]

A 15 year old girl gets groomed and taken advantage of by R Kelly and we call her a victim.
Another 15 year old girl gets groomed and goes to Syria we call her a terrorist instead of a victim.

Double standards?

When were R Kelly's victims advocating terrorism?

 

[Revan]

I agree that her citizenship shouldn't have been revoked as a delaying tactic and if she got back to the UK she should have been processed.

I don't agree that the UK government should have gone to get her, baby or not. If a baby qualifies these women for rescue then how valuable does a baby become as a commodity in these lawless camps, is that not a very dangerous precedent to set in and of itself?

Totally agree. If she managed to come back to UK, she should have been allowed to enter and heavily prosecuted with the baby being adopted from some family or given to her parents.

UK had no business going and saving her there. The baby is unfortunately a collateral consequence but you cannot expect a country going to a war zone in order to save a terrorist who was fighting this country. It also puts a very bad precedent for the others to follow her example.

 

[Buster15]

A 15 year old girl gets groomed and taken advantage of by R Kelly and we call her a victim.
Another 15 year old girl gets groomed and goes to Syria we call her a terrorist instead of a victim.

Double standards?

You have identified the difference "gets taken advantage of"
She was not taken advantage of. She went to Syria of her own free will; married of her own free will; had more babies even though previous ones died.

I am sorry but your post is not an equivalent.

 

[oates]

A 15 year old girl gets groomed and taken advantage of by R Kelly and we call her a victim.
Another 15 year old girl gets groomed and goes to Syria we call her a terrorist instead of a victim.

Double standards?

Yeah, it's an interesting idea. The trouble though is selling the idea of Begum being a victim to all these life hardened cynics on here. Of course we can all empathise with a 15 year old girl from such a different culture can't we? No problem knowing what her life was like? Was she living in an area that saw her as part of the community? Going to a school literally full of girls of Bangladeshi descent? How was she getting on with her studies? What were her prospects? I literally have no idea myself about any of it. We're told she was groomed but many on here have attested to being mature enough at 15 to know what was what. Surely she can't have been that dim?

I sometimes see that picture taken by cctv of the three girls at the airport. I imagine them thinking at that moment 'Oh what larks cor lumme, we're off to perform terrorist actions and help our menfolk rape Yazidi women, blimey what fun we'll all have!' Maybe?

Maybe it was along the lines of becoming women, leaving their humdrum school and home lives behind. Going to do something incredible where they weren't a minority being spat on three times a day or even just looked at funny like. Who knows? I have no clue but someone groomed them. But not to be victims. Someone knows though.

The cynics do. They know everything.

 

[hobbers]

A 15 year old girl gets groomed and taken advantage of by R Kelly and we call her a victim.
Another 15 year old girl gets groomed and goes to Syria we call her a terrorist instead of a victim.

Double standards?

Just double checking, but did ISIS send someone over to her house to ply her with gifts? Intimidate her? Frog march her to the airport?

Nope. There is no comparison between being "groomed" by an ideology, online, and being groomed by a person, in person.

 

[Andy_Cole]

To be honest I was just playing devils advocate and wondered what people’s thoughts were.

A part of me feels that perhaps we should give her a chance to reform.

 

[iluvoursolskjær]

To be honest I was just playing devils advocat and wondered what people’s thoughts were.

A part of me feels that perhaps we should give her a chance to reform.

Be careful mate, you can get savaged for doing that around these parts.

 

[Zarlak]

You're omitting the points about joining a terrorist organisation, sympathising with the terrorist attack in Manchester, and showing no sign of disowning the IS ideology. If a white girl did the same things then absolutely I'd have the same attitude. Would the narrative in the press be the same? - who knows, but my guess is it would.

But you're omitting the point that we don't have different levels of response to criminals abroad when it comes to how we deal with them and getting them back to face prosecution whether it's serial killers, paedophiles, rapists etc. You're just creating a new standard here that's never been used before and then acting like that's normal and that's of course why everyone feels differently about this one brown girl.

You are either carelessly or wilfully misinterpreting what I said. To be clear, the ostracising of this woman is a populist position, but racism isn't. There is no contradiction there.

I'd be happy if we were able to prevent her from coming back to the UK, but it has nothing to do with her skin colour.

Apologies, I misunderstood you then. But in that case I would strongly disagree with you that the ostracising of this woman isn't a racist position. Even the slightest glance at any cross section of society that's ostracising her makes it perfectly clear it's about race and jumping at the chance to deny a Muslim entry to the country, something that Brexit was driven by. As has already been pointed out earlier in the thread, there are white jihadi brides who have gotten the exact opposite treatment.

Even actual terrorists are actively hunted overseas, let alone people who chose to have sex with terrorists. It's like in this one specific case people are suddenly okay with a criminal just going free elsewhere as long as we don't have to deal with them and there's no sensible justification for that.

 

[Zarlak]

There's no hysterics. People have been saying that Javid has blood on his hands.

I would say that Begum has blood on her hands but what I'm asking is what exactly do people think Javid should have done to bring her back in rapid time? Her baby was born..what, 2-3 weeks ago? And she's in a camp on the Syrian/Iraqi border. She popped up suddenly 2 weeks ago asking to be allowed back and she and her husband are in different SDF controlled camps. The SDF are currently running these camps/prisons/ processing thousands of people streaming out and making sure IS operatives aren't going out to cause havoc and planning for the final assault. So the individual case of Begum is probably not a priority.

So my point, perhaps slightly overstated but still valid, is how does Javid have blood on his hands? Even if he hadn't said the stuff about the citizenship, how would we have gotten Begum back here in the past 2 weeks in what is essentially still a warzone? Without military support if she wasn't going to be making the journey herself?

Asking if we expected the SAS to get involved is hysterics. That's like me asking 'what did you expect, for me to pay the best surgeon in the world to come operate on you?' when a more reasonable answer would have been 'take me to the hospital'. There's no reason to invoke the SAS, you're the one there setting the ridiculous yardstick when the obvious answer is to do the same as we do with any other criminal and work with foreign entities to get them back. So yeah, there was hysterics or obvious obtuseness in a serious discussion with actual answers. The actual expectation/action that could/should have been taken is actually relatively speaking easy and effortless.

 

[hobbers]

To be honest I was just playing devils advocate and wondered what people’s thoughts were.

A part of me feels that perhaps we should give her a chance to reform.

Depends what sort of chance we're talking about. Personally I think she should be allowed back, if she can make it to a British consulate on her own. But if she does ever get back to Britain she'll be tried and presumably imprisoned for at least 5 years, along with whatever passes for our deradicalisation efforts, and lifelong surveillance. Then you have the issue of her husband, who should obviously never be allowed to step foot on British soil.

Given all of that I just don't see a way back for her.

But she certainly isn't a victim. I guess a decent equivalence would be to compare her online indoctrination with ISIS to the equally dim witted young guys who fall down the rabbit hole of white supremacy.

 

[Edgar Allan Pillow]

If only to give the child a better future....

 

[oates]

Just double checking, but did ISIS send someone over to her house to ply her with gifts? Intimidate her? Frog march her to the airport?

Nope. There is no comparison between being "groomed" by an ideology, online, and being groomed by a person, in person.

Here is a paper drawing direct comparison even discussing the three girls from Bethnal Green.

https://www.intechopen.com/books/co...nd-young-people-s-vulnerabilities-to-grooming

 

[Adisa]

Regardless of what we think of her. Javid should have absolutely no right to strip her of her nationality.

 

[hobbers]

Here is a paper drawing direct comparison even discussing the three girls from Bethnal Green.

https://www.intechopen.com/books/co...nd-young-people-s-vulnerabilities-to-grooming

And in that lit review it gives a good reason why you cant draw an equivalence - because being groomed by an ideology means you already have to have common ground beliefs with it. The reason people can be radicalised by ISIS or white supremacist propaganda online is because they already believe in some or all of the things that are fundamental to those doctrines. And they usually self-radicalise by falling into online echo chambers.

It's patently not the same as being manipulated for CSE by individuals who get to know their victims, and prey on their vulnerabilities.

 

[oates]

And in that lit review it gives you a good reason why you cant draw an equivalence - because being groomed by an ideology means you already have to have common ground beliefs with it. The reason people can be radicalised by ISIS or white supremacist propaganda online is because they already believe in some or all of the things that are fundamental to those doctrines. And they usually self-radicalise by falling into online echo chambers.

It's patently not the same as being manipulated for CSE by individuals who get to know their victims, and prey on their vulnerabilities.

Well you said there is no comparison. There are comparisons even if the two things are different. I believe that what you mean is that there is no equivalence, but there are very strong reasons why it is possible and we don't actually know the facts.

Actually seeking to gain the facts should be our aim instead of people like you and I deciding what they are in absence of any truths.

 

[Prometheus]

She is as British as the 'White widows' our government is pursuing to bring to British justice...

Wait, the government is doing that? That's insane double standards if that's the case! Wow!

 

[Carolina Red]

Wait, the government is doing that? That's insane double standards if that's the case! Wow!

We did a drone strike on one of the White Widows.

 

[Red Defence]

We did a drone strike on one of the White Widows.

And the other one is wanted by other countries for her terrorist activity, whereabouts u/k though.

 

[hobbers]

Well you said there is no comparison. There are comparisons even if the two things are different. I believe that what you mean is that there is no equivalence, but there are very strong reasons why it is possible and we don't actually know the facts.

Actually seeking to gain the facts should be our aim instead of people like you and I deciding what they are in absence of any truths.

Yeah, fair enough. I just don't agree with anyone trying to put the likes of Begum in the same category as someone who's a victim of grooming by a sexual predator. If there's a victimhood scale then Begum would be closer to Thomas Mair than any victim of CSE.

Possibly the best thing she could offer if she ever does get back is an insight into how people like her can fall down these internet rabbit holes. Could probably learn something useful from her browser history and her commentary on it now.