State of Denial
--
In the early part of the last decade, yes it’s the last decade sorry to break it to you, the chaos left by the previous decade’s invasion of Iraq was seized upon by Daesh — more commonly known as ISIS or ISIL. I do not need to go into the horrors of the state they established across the borders of Syria and Iraq, or that the forces combating them at one point consisted of Qassim Solemani’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard, The Taliban and the U.S Military which is certainly a coalition.
During its existence, Daesh recruited both fighters and also “ISIL Brides” — young women who often travelled to Syria and Iraq without the knowledge of their families to marry combatants and provide a future for the Islamic State. Some were taken to the Daesh territory by parents who wished to support the cause. None of these are easy stories to read, they are stories of exploitation, radicalisation and terror.
The Brides of ISIL list makes for interesting reading. 15 from the UK, 13 from Australia, 6 from the USA. And it’s important to note that some of these women were legally children when they left their homes to join Daesh — some of them were just 14 years old when they were groomed and radicalised into believing there was a better life waiting for them in a war-zone. And many of them are dead, killed in airstrikes or completely disappeared in the chaos of the collapse of the Islamic State.
Some are alive though. A few have been repatriated, some to face prison sentences in their home countries. Some await trial in Iraq for their involvement in terrorism. More of them are in the refugee camps, where they await consequences of one form or another, relating to their aim to return home.
In the UK, the approach has been to strip them of their citizenship. Shamima Begum, who was 15 when she travelled to Syria, had two of her children from marriage to an ISIS fighter die, was found in a refugee camp about to give birth to her third child. Expressing a wish to come home, the Home Secretary Sajid Javid immediately moved to strip her of citizenship.
It is illegal to strip someone of citizenship if it leaves them stateless. Javid and the UK Government argued that Begum had Bangladeshi citizenship, something that the Government of Bangladesh denies. Begum took her case to the UK Supreme Court, who ruled in favour of the UK Government. Begum’s son died a few weeks after birth, of pneumonia.
Suhayra Aden is a slightly different case. She was 19 when she travelled to Syria, had three children — one of whom, like Begum, died of pneumonia. Aden was also in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019, when she had her citizenship revoked by Australia. Aden and her children (2 and 5) were apprehended crossing the Turkish border in February 2021, attempting to escape Daesh.
However Aden was born in Auckland, and moved to Australia when she was 6. That means she was not rendered stateless by Australia’s decision to strip citizenship, and Aotearoa New Zealand has accepted the responsibility for repatriating and providing the opportunity to build a new life for her and her children. It is the country’s legal responsibility, and one that has been shirked by both the UK and Australia.
The reason for this though, is interesting. Aden spent 13 years of her life in Australia, before travelling to join Daesh. Begum and her two friends had spent their entire lives in the United Kingdom before travelling to Syria. And it is the UK, Australia and the U.S who provide the majority of these young women to the Islamic State.
Firstly, these young women were groomed and radicalised online by Daesh— their decision to travel to join Daesh is a fundamental consequence of this radicalisation. It has nothing to do with the UK, Australia and the U.S and by making that decision they forfeited their right to citizenship in those nations. They have suffered as a result of their choices, they have lost children, but that is the consequences. Not our problem any more. This is popular because it means their home country doesn’t have to think about itself as any part of their decision to leave. Hold on, let me try that again.
These young women were groomed and radicalised online by the Islamic State — a visible and active terrorist threat to the nations they travelled from, nations who have spent the best part of two decades involved in military intervention in the area where Daesh asserted itself, nations who have established a security infrastructure which overwhelmingly targets young Muslims like Begum, Aden and all of the others. And yet they still left.
And that’s really fucking embarrassing. If you’re a right-wing Government, such as exists in the UK and Australia, having to let back in someone who you failed to stop joining a terrorist state makes you look weak as fuck. Especially if, say, you’re a country which consistently and structurally treats non-white people as less than white people.
As Anjum Rahman points out, the de-radicalisation programmes that are being funded as a response to the March 15th 2019 attacks should obviously include Ms Aden, as much as they are going to focus on domestic extremism. Ms Aden’s young children deserve the chance to have a normal and anonymous childhood in a safe nation like Aotearoa New Zealand. Ms Aden herself deserves the opportunity to make a clean break from her past decisions.
It is a unambiguously good thing that the Government is doing, and one that is not necessarily going to be popular. It demonstrates a willingness to uphold international human rights law, and treats Ms Aden and her children like human beings rather than criminals or even just waste to be disposed of. It shows a bravery, a bravery that is sorely lacking in Australia and the United Kingdom along with any self-reflection on this whole tragic mess.
