Tuesday, March 16 2021
By Michael Glackin
Newspapers in the UK have devoted a fair bit of coverage in recent days to the tale of an exiled Brit. A UK citizen, who having turned their back on life at home, is now languishing in a hot, arid country, thousands of miles from their family, surrounded by strangers and fearing for their safety. A person desperate to tell their story to a British public that, for the most part, has absolutely no desire to hear it.
No, not Prince Harry, sixth in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, and currently residing in a nine-bedroom mansion in southern California, but Shamima Begum, Jihadi child bride, and currently rotting in a dusty internment camp in northern Syria.
Prince Harry, I gather from the snippets of his “tell-all” interview with television superstar Oprah Winfrey, is looking for a purpose in life.
Begum is just looking for a life.
Now aged 21, Begum was one of three schoolgirls from London who travelled to Raqqa six years ago to join Daesh at the height of the Syrian war. The other two, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, are understood to have been perished in the conflict. Readers may remember Begum’s UK citizenship was revoked by the UK government on national security grounds just days after she was found, by The Times newspaper, in the Al-Hawl refugee camp in 2019.
Last week, the UK Supreme Court refused Begum’s request to return to the UK to challenge that decision, ruling she is too dangerous to be allowed back into the country. While preventing her return, the court added that Begum’s appeal against the decision to revoke her citizenship should continue once she can participate without "public safety being compromised”. Bearing in mind she is currently living in a tent under armed guard that particular part of the ruling may prove about as much use to Begum as a handbrake on a canoe.
Many in the UK are quite happy for Begum to rot in Syria.
Daesh’s fondness for butchering, burning, and beheading the innocent, and for throwing homosexuals off high buildings were well-known before Begum ran away to join them. Moreover, none of this seemed to bother her much while she ensconced in Raqqa.
However, as I have said before, I believe the decision to strip Begum of her citizenship is wrong. To make Begum stateless, on the basis of a decision she made as a 15 year old child is shameful. Like it or not, Begum was radicalized through grooming that occurred in the UK. She is a UK problem, not one that should be outsourced to another country.
Oddly enough, like Prince Harry, Begum’s destiny may lie in the US.
US President Joe Biden, like his predecessor Donald Trump, wants foreign Jihadis currently held in Syrian internment camps and prisons to be sent home. The US has long been concerned that the camps are breeding grounds for the rebirth of Daesh.
In November, General Frank McKenzie, the Marine commander overseeing US military operations in the Middle East, warned refugee camps had become “fertile ground for the propagation of radical ideologies”, leaving inmates “hostage to the receipt of ISIS [Daesh] ideology”.
McKenzie urged the west to repatriate those held in the camps, and reintegrate them into their home communities. Last month, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, US ambassador for special political affairs, also warned the United Nations that repatriations were needed to counter the threat from the Daesh.
The US has taken back Americans held in Syria and called on other countries to do the same. In response, Germany and Finland have repatriated women and children from Syrian camps, but Washington has expressed "frustration" with the UK’s refusal to accept responsibility for its citizens.
Last week’s UK court ruling, which was gleefully welcomed by the country's combative home secretary (interior minister) Priti Patel, flies in the face of US strategy. It vindicates the UK government’s decision to revoke not just Begum’s citizenship, but also that of an estimated 50 other UK citizens, and their children, who remain in Syrian camps. It puts the UK government firmly on a collision course with the Biden administration.
The Biden administration is not all that well disposed to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government at the best of times. The two leaders share a genuine desire to act on climate change, but Biden, like every post-war president bar Trump, views the European Union as an important political partner. Thus, he is not a fan of Brexit, Johnson’s signature political achievement. The odds on the elusive post Brexit UK-US trade deal, much talked about by Trump but never enacted, have lengthened considerably under Biden.
The US President, who has Irish ancestry, has also warned Johnson against re-establishing a so called “hard border” between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland amid Brexit inspired trade complications. Moreover, it is worth pointing out that the US still pays the lion’s share of the bills for the Syrian internment camps. Biden will likely decide soon that if there aren’t any Americans being held in them it’s an expense he can do without.
It is against this backdrop that Begum’s fate could ultimately be decided, and as such her future, like Prince Harry’s is inextricably linked to the US. It may well prove to be more politically expedient for the UK to allow Begum back to face trial, and demonstrate some goodwill towards Washington, than continue to hang her out to dry as a bauble to an increasingly xenophobia electorate.
And anyway. When Begum and her schoolmates left London and travelled overland from Turkey to join Daesh, they became the hip global poster girls for the group and fundamentalist Islam. Returning Begum, putting her on trial for whatever crimes she has committed and rehabilitating her would turn her into the poster girl for the values the UK purports to hold dear. It would show the true strengths of liberalism over the death cult she foolishly embraced. If the US President needs to nudge Johnson to remind him of that, then so be it.
As for Prince Harry. Most people in the UK are happy for him to stay where he is.
Michael Glackin is former Managing Editor of Beirut newspaper The Daily Star.
