Shamima Begum – state abuse and victimisation
Politics in our so-called democracy has descended to such a
low level of shameless impudence that the voting public no longer care and any
serious commentator will find his words wasted in a media in bed with power. Nonetheless,
I venture to weigh in with my opinion on the topic of “jihadi brides”, so
symptomatic of how most of the civilised values – and the principles they were
built on – have been cast away or turned upside down in the post-colonial new
grab for territory and control. The media attention brought to the case of this
so unfortunate teenage woman who has lost three of her children, with the last death
directly attributable to the decision of home secretary “uncle Tom” Sajid Javid
to revoke her British citizenship, is full of copy-selling semantics and exotic
drama but fails to realise that it is dealing with a prime example of how the “war
on terror” has corrupted us all. To the gutter press, she is an “IS bride” who
is now somehow paying back for the exotic holiday she went on when the rest of
the British public had to slave away to pay their mortgage. In reality, she is
no bride at all and not going to get married any time soon – she is a casualty
of another illegal war our government ventured into and traumatised by the
experience for which she can hardly be held responsible.
The new mantra of regime change has changed international
politics forever, from Iraq via Libya and Syria to Venezuela. Western
governments have attributed to themselves the right to decide who should govern
a given country, rather than leaving that decision to that country’s people,
and out goes all the hype about democracy. A new twist is to try the
non-military approach to undermining sovereignty, and once the genie is out of
the bottle it can’t be put back. When Juan Guaido declared himself president by
virtue of the backing he received from a superpower having long wanted to make
Venezuela more subservient again, and when all the “allied” or bought countries
of the world followed suit in recognising him, he set a trend for similar
imposters in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Will post-Brexit Britain be
next to have a self-declared prime minister, backed by China maybe?
In trying to topple the legitimate government of Syria – and
the question is not whether it is popular or liked by everybody, but whether it
is legitimate; it is fair to say that the majority of British people do not
like Donald Trump or Theresa May either – the US-led alliance actively promoted
and armed rebel militias to bring civil war to the country, and this, though
not openly admitted, included ISIS who killed their victims, mostly Muslims,
with US weapons and ammunition. And to hide the dirty game from their publics
at home, the state-sponsored and controlled Western media (bribery works just as
well as censorship!) did not expose that a proxy war between the US, Russia and
China was being fought in numerous theatres of war from Afghanistan to Syria,
but elevated the IS brand in order to turn this murderous mess into a righteous
fight against those barbarous Muslims. On some impressible minds, however, like
that of schoolgirl Shamima, the propaganda had a damaging effect, scarring her
for life.
The lives of many British teenagers, Muslim or not, tend to
be quite bleak, with boredom at school and few prospects afterwards, and so
they look for distraction, excitement and adventure. Some find it in partying,
alcohol and drugs, others get sucked into the ever growing gang culture. Too
many young lives are destroyed in this way, yet whilst we punish those who were
caught actually committing crimes, we tend to think that they still deserve
being rescued and rehabilitated. Likewise for those youngsters who, for the
very same reasons, joined the armed forces young and foolishly, unaware that
they would be sent away as cannon fodder in wars which had no meaning to them.
To those who come back traumatised, even if they committed atrocities or
participated in torture, like in Abu Ghraib, we offer counselling and hope to
integrate them back into society, although the attempts often fail as indicated
by the high suicide rate amongst ex-servicemen. Yet here is a young British
teenager whom we want to wash our hands off, because she joined the wrong gang,
and it is so much easier to blame her instead of admitting to our own failings.
Her father humiliatingly apologised for her actions, but
neither he nor her, were responsible for the trends outside their control which
shaped their lives. As a young girl she went to a British school, duly
inspected by Ofsted. Does the school shoulder its responsibility for failing
her? I have not heard an apology from either her head teacher or the local
education authority. Will we get an apology from Prevent, that failed
anti-terrorism and anti-radicalisation strategy beloved by the home secretary?
After all, if the policy of spying on Muslims wholesale and alienating that
community and breaking down the dialogue between them and others had not failed
so utterly, this girl might not have been radicalised under their radar and
gone abroad. Instead we are pouring more money into strategies which have been
proven to cause more harm than good. And when the 15-year old travelled to
Syria on a British passport, do not the UK Border Agency share some blame who
are so obsessed with the politically charged topic of immigration that they don’t
give a hoot who leaves their shores and where to? And the security services?
Being heavily involved in Syria, they would surely be aware of naïve young
girls flocking into that country to serve in a lost cause? Remember, whenever
there is a terrorist attack on European soil we subsequently learn that the
perpetrator “was previously known to security services”. But they don’t care to
save individuals setting out to harm themselves – the security and
anti-terrorism industry is big business, and keeping the threat alive is
certainly more lucrative when it comes to job security in the services they
work for. So let them go to kill and get killed in order to become an example
of the dangers we face! Yes, this is the age of cynicism and prevention being
better than cure is not part of the equation when the cure (this includes the
privatised prison system) pays good money.
So the government, busy with being the Brexit-joke
of Europe, opts for the easy route. No need to admit having, motivated by greed
and inflated ego, made a mess which is coming back to haunt us or to take
responsibility for the results and promise lasting changes: let’s just blame it
on the victim and feed her to the dogs. And in doing so, another of those
Western values we could once be proud of goes out of the window: British
citizenship is no longer worth the paper it is written upon, for the state can
disown you whenever you become a burden. And this is the fault Shamima’s father
should maybe admit to being culpable of: having thought that British
citizenship was sacred and worth sacrificing so much for, including his own
children. Had they not been socialised in the UK, he most likely would not have
had to see his daughter suffer and his grandchildren die.