British IS schoolgirl 'wants to return home'

[Treacle Toes]

I started out feeling like she should be left where she is and see what pans out, but some of you on here would make me happily push the release a drone button for her now.

...rather than you actually thinking she deserved it via her own actions? Bizarre.

 

[eoin_k]

The art of rhetoric is wasted on some people.

 

[Treacle Toes]

The art of rhetoric is lost on some people.

Art? There's a lot to be said for plain speaking IMO. Some would argue it's an art too.

 

[sheothebudworths]

Nothing I have heard about Prevent inspires confidence. Obviously there are parallels between online grooming and recruiting teenagers to the likes of Daesh, but the two activities aren't exactly equivalent and you can see how the Government might have an agenda in conflating the two.

This wasn't some blokes in Rotherham getting vulnerable teenagers pissed and taking advantage of them. A lot of the grooming seemed to have consisted in women, many of them quite young themselves, encouraging their peers to follow their lead.
No doubt this included practical tips about how to get there, but I haven't seen anything to suggest flights were being paid for and their would be a paper trial if this was the case.
None of this is to suggest Daesh isn't a regressively patriarchal set up.

I do agree with loads of that and honestly, I'm not suggesting there's an obvious way to fall.
I don't think that Prevent was ever set with no agenda but then I'm equally confused when it's turned against children who may have been manipulated (and does it matter who by?), after the fact. Does that make sense? It might not!

 

[eoin_k]

LynnDoyleCooper makes a rhetorical point and now everyones getting indignant, like they've actually advocated a drone strike on a kurdish refugee camp.

 

[ice-is-forming]

I'd like to see her plight taken up by an impartial and neutral organisation who specialises in this such as the red cross

 

[kebabking]

Apropos of little, but listening to a couple of those who have studied the 'grooming' aspects of IS's recruitment efforts, it appears that there is a difference in between the boys/young men and the girls/young women: by and large, the boys come from the more vunerable, gullable, disaffected, not-quite-the-full-shilling end of the human pool, while the girls tend to be very bright, very assimilated/integrated, and with social capital.

Not in every case of course, but there is a very definite trend. The two I listened to seemed to think that the girls were more likely to be proactive about joining IS than the boys, more likely to seek them out online, and to be a great deal clearer about what it was they were getting involved it.

Innocent victims they certainly weren't.

 

[Rob Ray]

LynnDoyleCooper makes a rhetorical point and now everyones getting indignant, like they've actually advocated a drone strike on a kurdish refugee camp.

I'm not suggesting he'd actually advocate it (seriously, I can't believe I'm having to explain this), I'm saying it's not cool to throw up a drone strike joke about the Middle East aimed at a pregnant teenager for the sake of flashing two fingers at a poster you don't like. He's not Frankie Boyle and this isn't 2009.

 

[MrSki]

I'd like to see her plight taken up by an impartial and neutral organisation who specialises in this such as the red cross

I would think the red crescent might have more success.

 

[sheothebudworths]

Apropos of little, but listening to a couple of those who have studied the 'grooming' aspects of IS's recruitment efforts, it appears that there is a difference in between the boys/young men and the girls/young women: by and large, the boys come from the more vunerable, gullable, disaffected, not-quite-the-full-shilling end of the human pool, while the girls tend to be very bright, very assimilated/integrated, and with social capital.

Not in every case of course, but there is a very definite trend. The two I listened to seemed to think that the girls were more likely to be proactive about joining IS than the boys, more likely to seek them out online, and to be a great deal clearer about what it was they were getting involved it.

Innocent victims they certainly weren't.

So why does that happen? Why do those girls feel like that? Why did those girls commit to it together?

 

[eoin_k]

I'm not suggesting he'd actually advocate it (seriously, I can't believe I'm having to explain this), I'm saying it's not cool to throw up a drone strike joke about the Middle East aimed at a pregnant teenager for the sake of flashing two fingers at a poster you don't like. He's not Frankie Boyle and this isn't 2009.

She was recruited by an organisation that used snuff movies for propaganda, as well as drones to help lay waste to large chunks of Syria. She still expresses no regrets and speaks casually about why it might have been necessary to murder journalists, a sentiment I share rhetorically at times to be fair, but you know her associates actually did it. The people running her refugee camp are probably only alive because they called in drone strikes against these associates... frankly a bit of gallows humour from a stranger online is the least of her worries.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

So why does that happen? Why do those girls feel like that? Why did those girls commit to it together?

It suggests to me something other than desperation. Perhaps desperation at the state of the world in general, at injustice, something teenagers can feel very sharply, rather than a sense of personal desperation in their everyday lives. That could be tied to something hopeful and idealistic. Something ambitious and worthwhile to counter the injustice. IS is nothing if not idealistic, after all, a promise to build an entire new society based on God's law.

 

[Rob Ray]

She was recruited by an organisation that used snuff movies for propaganda ... frankly a bit of gallows humour from a stranger online is the least of her worries.

Tell you what, if she shows up and starts making jokes about bombing buses on here I'll be equally critical. Fair? And it wasn't "gallows humour" it was a snide remark using a shitty premise.

 

[Treacle Toes]

It suggests to me something other than desperation. Perhaps desperation at the state of the world in general, at injustice, something teenagers can feel very sharply, rather than a sense of personal desperation in their everyday lives. That could be tied to something hopeful and idealistic. Something ambitious and worthwhile to counter the injustice. IS is nothing if not idealistic, after all, a promise to build an entire new society based on God's law.

Do you know what it's like to be a girl born into a Bangladeshi family in Bethnal Green circa 2000 till now? What generalisations might we agree?
How can we have this conversation if it's all about well 'she must have known X' but devoid of who, where and how she was living/was.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

This thread's gone to some pretty weird places, but "happily push the release a drone button" on a pregnant woman is not something I think is even slightly acceptable to write, even if you think it's mainly a method to bare your teeth at another poster. Fucking hell.

No, she should have been shot (and killed) by a syrian revolutionary. but you know, when the international community didn't want the fall of bashar, then Assad was able to make them a busted flush. as for all this debate, everything is the saudis fault isn't it?

I've seen people (with my own eyes) go ultra-conservative and salafist. it's not really comparable to IS. even the hard core salafis I know don't back IS. they are very very reactionary, let's not be coy about it, but they are generally involved in theological sectarianism and political quietism. there was probably a lot of psychological coercion but this tosh about believeing in IS refounding a better world, noone believes that in the muslim community. The wealthy went over there to crush the revs (I don't believe Begum is wealthy or from a wealthy family although who knows with east london these days.) Probably has some sociopathic tendancies who knows, but that's not really something I'm gonna spend hours thinking about, making a psychological profile of someone who would first and foremost kill me (not youse.)

The problem with british masjids is not their conservatism, turkish masjids are just as conservative and patriarchal, the problem is their open and direct hard core gaslighting. that style of preaching inherited from 20th century pan-islamic anticolonial struggles even whilst the people making these speeches are integrated into the british state and even admit total *state loyalty and fidelity.* that is the real issue here, not whether she was indoctrinated but you try and tell that to the darlings of the middle eastern left in this godforsaken country with their white bootlicking (ahem) 'allies.' My baba was a socialist and a professor in the 70s! oh, get out of my face then...

There's a reason why the left in the middle east in the 60s-70s early 80s were hard core secularists. but people don't want to acknowledge that today. anything to cling on their utterly irrelevant identity that noone cares about coz we've all exited politics *shakes my head.*

 

[ManchesterBeth]

We're going in circles on this thread now. I don't think there is a clear difference wrt IS at all. She smuggled herself into Syria to join them to help build the new Islamic State, to marry (specifically) a fighter and to have his babies. All for the greater glory of the new order. She is clearly implicated in everything they did. She made common cause with the whole thing.

There is no islamic state there was no islamic state ffs why do you always make these propagandised points (at face value like a loyal counter-terror expert) and not call isis what it is? a racket. not a caliphate even in the traditional imperial sense. Sort it out.

If she's that ideologically committed to IS, if she knows the tradition, then she's not being groomed from a position of islamic ignorance. this all seems shady as fuck but anything to protect a 'british citizen' whilst the undeserving british or not, are fucked over. noone talking about the charter flights to Jamaica in the news (as in the news media, not on this forum...) just this eejit.

and I saw on my twitter some people trying to justify her as a prole that needs to have restorative justice applied. How do you do restorative justice to the class enemy? some people are trying to make this a mad political thing. she needs help, definitely, but this isn't a grand political project. it isn't really much to do with islamophobia either.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

dp.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

I'm not "denying her agency", I specifically said in the second line that she's not absolved of guilt. And yes, the whole point is we know fuck all about her psychology either before, during or after, other than that she was 15 and religious at the start and is talking tough at the finish. Everything else is making assertions based on little more than what a 19-year-old refugee trapped in a camp (which may or may not also have a number of people in it who wouldn't take kindly to say, a full-on recanting of prior affiliations) has to say about her experiences.

That said, the inability to even imagine that a teenager might have their head turned by a well-executed campaign of propaganda aimed at exploiting alienation, sympathy with repressed Muslim peoples, existing faith etc I find totally weird. Even Scientologists have a decent hit rate with cult recruitment and they're literally selling a space emperor dropping souls into a volcano via a little buzzing gauge. Is this not about 1,000 times more likely than the idea that a 15-year-old independently came to the conclusion that Murder and Torture Is Fine Because The Infidel Must Die from an average teenage daily news diet of I dunno, Newsround and Instagram?

A well executed propaganda campaign that was (turned a blind eye to, if not patronised) by the british state. oh but you think this starts with ISIS don't you? loool no, I remember in 03-04, how at schools there would be juma prayers, and everything from celebrating the prophets birth, to listening to music, to wishing non-believers a merry christmas, to talking to members of the opposite sex was all declared prohibited. some people still, still cannot understand why I'm always angry. that's why because our state schools are still fundamentally multicultural theocratic schools. Tell me, in religious studies, do you even begin to learn about how the historiography of islam was contested by the early muslims? no because the whole point is liberal tolerance, they don't teach you religion, with all of its messsy contradictions and contestations, they teach you the hagiography and victory of the dominant.

 

[Spymaster]

Stupid hyperbole.

Cheers. If you had given that any currency I would have had to consider it.

 

[Spymaster]

So why does that happen? Why do those girls feel like that? Why did those girls commit to it together?

Why did many thousands of others ... not?

 

[Spymaster]

Do you know what it's like to be a girl born into a Bangladeshi family in Bethnal Green circa 2000 till now? What generalisations might we agree?
How can we have this conversation if it's all about well 'she must have known X' but devoid of who, where and how she was living/was.

Is this a joke or a wind-up?

I know quite a few lads and girls from Beffers and surrounding areas who haven't fucked-off across continents to join "ISIL" rape colonies.

 

[likesfish]

Problem is if she comes back to the UK there's a none zero chance she packs her baby's pram with explosives and kills herself her kid and a few others for reasons

 

[Red Cat]

I know. I was responding to another post that was disconnecting the relationship between unconscious drives/influences and agency...we are never just one or the other than in infancy surely?

I don't think that was what was meant by drove, I think the 'it' that drove was thought of as something external rather than an unconscious psychological drive.

I agree it's not possible to think about motivation without thinking about unconscious aspects, or unknown aspects of our mind or personality. Without that, the discussion becomes conscious agency vs being forced by somebody else and about blame. Of course, like I already said, we don't anything about this young woman's mind, other than what is visible through her actions, but I think it would help a lot of discussions about behaviour that we don't understand to have a greater sense of psychological complexity, to recognise that we're all 'driven' by parts of ourselves we're not aware of.

 

[Red Cat]

Apropos of little, but listening to a couple of those who have studied the 'grooming' aspects of IS's recruitment efforts, it appears that there is a difference in between the boys/young men and the girls/young women: by and large, the boys come from the more vunerable, gullable, disaffected, not-quite-the-full-shilling end of the human pool, while the girls tend to be very bright, very assimilated/integrated, and with social capital.

Not in every case of course, but there is a very definite trend. The two I listened to seemed to think that the girls were more likely to be proactive about joining IS than the boys, more likely to seek them out online, and to be a great deal clearer about what it was they were getting involved it.

Innocent victims they certainly weren't.

What did you listen to?

 

[A380]

No, she should have been shot (and killed) by a syrian revolutionary. but you know, when the international community didn't want the fall of bashar, then Assad was able to make them a busted flush. as for all this debate, everything is the saudis fault isn't it?

I've seen people (with my own eyes) go ultra-conservative and salafist. it's not really comparable to IS. even the hard core salafis I know don't back IS. they are very very reactionary, let's not be coy about it, but they are generally involved in theological sectarianism and political quietism. there was probably a lot of psychological coercion but this tosh about believeing in IS refounding a better world, noone believes that in the muslim community. The wealthy went over there to crush the revs (I don't believe Begum is wealthy or from a wealthy family although who knows with east london these days.) Probably has some sociopathic tendancies who knows, but that's not really something I'm gonna spend hours thinking about, making a psychological profile of someone who would first and foremost kill me (not youse.)

The problem with british masjids is not their conservatism, turkish masjids are just as conservative and patriarchal, the problem is their open and direct hard core gaslighting. that style of preaching inherited from 20th century pan-islamic anticolonial struggles even whilst the people making these speeches are integrated into the british state and even admit total *state loyalty and fidelity.* that is the real issue here, not whether she was indoctrinated but you try and tell that to the darlings of the middle eastern left in this godforsaken country with their white bootlicking (ahem) 'allies.' My baba was a socialist and a professor in the 70s! oh, get out of my face then...

There's a reason why the left in the middle east in the 60s-70s early 80s were hard core secularists. but people don't want to acknowledge that today. anything to cling on their utterly irrelevant identity that noone cares about coz we've all exited politics *shakes my head.*

There is no islamic state there was no islamic state ffs why do you always make these propagandised points (at face value like a loyal counter-terror expert) and not call isis what it is? a racket. not a caliphate even in the traditional imperial sense. Sort it out.

If she's that ideologically committed to IS, if she knows the tradition, then she's not being groomed from a position of islamic ignorance. this all seems shady as fuck but anything to protect a 'british citizen' whilst the undeserving british or not, are fucked over. noone talking about the charter flights to Jamaica in the news (as in the news media, not on this forum...) just this eejit.

and I saw on my twitter some people trying to justify her as a prole that needs to have restorative justice applied. How do you do restorative justice to the class enemy? some people are trying to make this a mad political thing. she needs help, definitely, but this isn't a grand political project. it isn't really much to do with islamophobia either.

Thanks. Thoughtful posts by someone with more than just a cursory understanding of what’s actually going on.

What on Earth are you doing on this thread?

 

[NoXion]

More slut-shaming.

Can I just say that this is absolutely the most twisted usage of this particular term I have ever seen? And I thought liberals were bad for that kind of thing.

 

[kebabking]

What did you listen to?

It was on Radio 4, either the world at one or PM, on Friday (yesterday) - I realise this is all terribly unsourced, but the two experts/commentators sounded pretty clued up. One was an American, an academic I think, and the other a journalist who specialises in the European jihadis.

If there are better sources i'd'be interested in reading them, but the gist is certainly something i've read several times over the last 5 years or so.

 

[The39thStep]

The family solicitor Mohammed Akunjee is an islamcist with a track record in supporting CAGE, alleging that the security servies were responsible for Lee Rigbys death as they gave one of his killers a hard time, advising Muslims not to cooperate with Prevent or any other counter terrorism initiatives and said it’s not extremism to call for death of British soldiers as its their job to die.

 

[The39thStep]

Terrible story . One minute this family has packed their suncream, swimming gear and holiday reading for a break in the Turkish sun and the next minute they end up ,to their surprise, joining the ISIS state.
'We were going on holiday but ended up in Syria'- British family detained for Isil links plea for return to Britain

 

[kebabking]

The family solicitor Mohammed Akunjee is an islamcist with a track record in supporting CAGE, alleging that the security servies were responsible for Lee Rigbys death as they gave one of his killers a hard time, advising Muslims not to cooperate with Prevent or any other counter terrorism initiatives and said it’s not extremism to call for death of British soldiers as its their job to die.

Well, thats their PR campaign down the shitter then...