Shamima Begum: 'Groomed' or 'Indoctrinated'?
by Andrew Ash • December 7, 2022 at 5:00 am
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) seems to have a short memory. Although it has only been a few years since the brutal Islamic State (ISIS) was defeated, from the tone of the BBC's recent articles -- featuring a female jihadi's returning to Europe from Syria -- you could be forgiven for thinking that the ISIS bloodbath was just another government-run women's empowerment initiative.
Take the sympathetic account of Shamima Begum, the Pakistani-British schoolgirl who felt compelled to make the hazardous journey from the British Midlands to the "ISIS capital", Raqqa, to marry a jihadist and join in the fun. By her own admission, within weeks she was used to, and evidently unfazed by, the sight of headless corpses and public executions.
Perhaps if ISIS had not been defeated, Begum would have given a plum role by now, maybe even in the ISIS "morality police". Instead of continuing her climb to the Islamist group's topmost echelons, however, she was arrested and incarcerated in a Syrian detention camp. After several attempts by lawyers to reverse the British government's decision to revoke her British passport, she is now claiming to have been "trafficked". She would like us to forget about her apparent enthusiasm for immersing herself in the most brutal forms of Sharia law, and instead is demanding sympathy and to be treated as a victim herself.
It certainly didn't take long for the BBC to set aside any revulsion for Begum's actions, and instead focus on the "human rights" of this otherwise fully paid-up box-ticker: Muslim, check. Female, check. "Of colour", check. Feminist? Perhaps not.
Although forgiveness is not high on the BBC's to-do list when it comes to trashing figures whose politics they oppose, female jihadis are apparently another matter altogether. Essentially, people at the BBC and other outlets would like the British public to join them in rebranding her as a victim as opposed to her actual role as an oppressor.
Being "granted innocence" as a child, they fail to point out, is intrinsically linked to certain criteria, such as coercion by one's parents to commit murder; but at what age is that excuse no longer credible? To suggest that it is the "system of oppression" and the "Islamophobia" of Begum's "Muslim-ness" that turned her into a figure of hate, is not only to excuse her behaviour, but tacitly emboldens a twisted ideology, in which this author was raised, whose ultimate goal is to rid the world of "unbelievers".
As far as indoctrination is concerned, there are no age limits. Indoctrinated children will most likely grow up into indoctrinated adults. The problem, therefore, is not the "manipulation of innocent children", but the ideology itself.
A malleable child at the hands of a fundamentalist parent, for example, will likely find it easier to accept the extremities of "Allah's will", or concepts such as martyrdom, than those who have not been offered those thoughts. The same goes for a disenfranchised Muslim, who, in the West, might feel persecuted or pushed into a corner, rather than praised for his "commitment".
Many of them, however, will already have been radicalised, and -- like "sleeper cells" -- are perhaps even unconsciously biding their time. They are not under direct orders from any human authority. Allah holds dominion over them. Should they fail to flourish within the alien "kuffar" society with which they have become entangled, or should they misread or excuse their lack of success as "oppression", this is when their indoctrination -- seeded as a child -- has a chance of re-emerging.
This changeability is part of the reason that Islam is so problematic: its chameleon-like tendency to adapt when necessary, and appear "moderate" if circumstances dictate. There is even a term for it, "taqiyya," meaning to dissemble, including the degree of one's religious identity when "in fear of persecution".
Of course, the perception of "persecution" is almost impossible to measure: it is often totally subjective. People with a tendency to feel offended can see it even if it may not actually be there. Feelings of being persecuted, sometimes referred to as paranoia, can be as just adaptable or acrobatic as the mind of any man, woman or child. In Islam, it often seems that the only requirement for perceiving persecution is if one can successfully make the argument to oneself.
All these people in ivory towers or at the BBC have one thing in common: they appear to have little idea of what Islam actually is.
Campaigning to bring jihadis back to Britain is a really bad, terrible idea. The situation is dour enough as it is, with the risk that refugees from the war-torn Middle East -- they and their terrorist cohorts displaced -- may one day "revert" to the fundamentalist Islam in which many of them were raised, as was demonstrated by 22-year-old Libyan, Salman Abedi, a who massacred scores of pop fans at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017.
"We will not tolerate hate towards any part of our community", declared the authorities after the Manchester bombing, demonstrating just how out of touch they are by issuing the warning -- not to terrorists -- but to the understandably outraged people of Britain.
The lack of awareness in delivering such a bizarre statement -- equating Islam with "equality" and "justice" -- is not surprising to me, having heard it all before, countless times from my religious siblings. The assumption that Begum and her friends were "targeted" however, is as laughable as the suggestion that my Muslim siblings were "targeted". Indeed, my sisters would be hugely insulted at it being inferred that they were targeted, and not "chosen" by Allah Himself. To misunderstand this point is to misunderstand what Islam is. The prism through which the West sees the world simply cannot be applied to Islam.
Similarly, the BBC's concept of "feminism" also sits awry next to "Islamic feminism", in that in Islam there is no higher authority than Allah -- very much a "male" entity, steeped in medieval traditions. All Muslims understand that their Creator's sensibilities and desires come before theirs, and if those sensibilities rub Western feminism the wrong way, then that is where their paths diverge.
Believing that the violence associated with Islam in the 20th and 21st centuries is unfairly depicted, is to stick one's head in the sand. Claiming that female jihadis, from Leila Khaled in the 1960s to Shamim Begum in 2015, are being "disrespected" for being "Muslim" -- rather than being disrespected for planning to massacre non-Muslims, "wrong" Muslims, or anyone-that-gets-in-their-way Muslims, is to be in denial.
What is the difference between "grooming" and "indoctrination"? One offers you "victim" status, the other does not. If it sounds oblique, it is probably meant to.
Despite a glut of recent cases, the police, working with counter- terrorism officers, are keen to make the point that there is nothing to worry about.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) seems to have a short memory. Although it has only been a few years since the brutal Islamic State (ISIS) was defeated, from the tone of the BBC's recent articles -- featuring a female jihadi's returning to Europe from Syria -- you could be forgiven for thinking that the ISIS bloodbath was just another government-run women's empowerment initiative.
Depending on the context or agenda of the day, the BBC seems unsure whether "radical" Islam, or "normal" Islam -- presuming the distinction can be made -- offers a path to the emancipation of women, or to their enslavement. The hijab, for example, may well act as a shield against the prying eyes of men, or a kind of "wife-branding" by husbands who treat their women as chattel, but to the BBC, it is also a "fashionable" symbol of "freedom" and "self-expression".
