What Shamima Begum’s Case Tells Us About the UK’s Treatment of Muslim Women
Shamima Begum is a title that is been embedded into British background for all the completely wrong factors. In recent several years the conversation about her scenario has shifted from Britain remaining hell-bent on retaining her out of the country to far more calls for an investigation into how she was groomed for terrorism in the 1st place. But there is additional to her story.
There are hundreds of thousands of South Asian Muslim women of all ages who’ve been left isolated and vilified because of the UK’s procedure of Begum’s situation. This piece sets out to amplify the voices of South Asian Muslim females in the British isles and at the exact same time showcase the unsettling fact of the discrimination they have to experience.
It should really go without the need of declaring but I, and all the gals I spoke with, strongly condemn the actions of Shamima Begum. Even so, we will not convert a blind eye to how the United kingdom taken care of her case. Talking with many South Asian Muslim gals on this subject matter I understood that they are demonized, isolated, and enable down.
It is very clear to the South Asian Muslim neighborhood that race performed a significant factor in the way Shamima Begum’s circumstance was handled.
For illustration, 1 girl spoke of how her teachers have been concerned about her traveling to Saudi Arabia in 2015, the year Shamima Begum, Amira Abase, and Kadiza Sultana left for Syria. The teacher’s worry was that her college student would potentially abide by in the similar footsteps as Shamima Begum and her companions. Another girl shared that the UK’s reaction to the situation created her fearful of the future of ladies from her local community.
Uk’s Remedy of White Women vs. Girls of Coloration
It’s clear to the South Asian Muslim local community that race performed a big factor in the way Shamima Begum’s case was taken care of. In comparison to how the United kingdom treats White girls in very similar predicaments, the British isles undoubtedly has its bias.
Rhianan Rudd, a 15-year-previous British girl was accused of plotting an attack and possessing recommendations on how to make firearms and explosives. These prices have been dropped months later when it emerged she was groomed on the internet by American Neo-Nazi Christopher Cook. Rudd’s mom instructed BBC that Rudd really should be dealt with “as a target somewhat than a terrorist.” Nick Lowles, Chief Executive of children’s charity, Hope Not Despise, mentioned as a response to her scenario that the United kingdom really should “ensure our counter-extremism technique is not just seen by a legislation-and-buy lens.”
In yet another scenario, the British isles has verified that it is only Muslim women of all ages of color who they will target. Samantha Lewthwaite, a White Muslim convert, was the spouse of 7/7 bomber, Jermaine Lindsay. She was suspected to know about the plot but was portrayed as a sufferer by lots of media shops. She fled the British isles shortly just after and was later suspected of staying driving a 2013 attack on a procuring center in Nairobi, Kenya but even just after this, she was explained as “shy” and “innocent” by persons who understood her. There was no uproar by the British isles media to consider action from her nor did the state threaten to choose away her British citizenship. The lack of investigation in both equally the situation of Rudd and Lewthwaite is a testament to the discrimination that the British isles imposes on any individual who identifies as non-White.
WHY IS Shamima Begum Viewed as a Terrorist?
When you hear the identify Shamima Begum the initially speedy relationship is terrorism. A recent podcast by BBC showcased Shamima Begum’s tale. This satisfied with international outcry as the public argues that she does not have earned to be given a system to voice her experience. Numerous also argued that her British citizenship should be revoked, while Begum was born in the Uk. Irrespective of staying groomed on British soil she hasn’t been authorized back again to the nation to be place on demo and solution for her crimes.
Why is there this sort of a disparity in the way these a few women (Rudd, Lewthwaite, Begum) ended up handled by the British govt and society? It can potentially be ideal described with the Idea of Intersectionality, at first coined by essential race scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, which is the concept that the different sections of one’s identification make an overlapping and one of a kind intersection of discrimination or the oppression just one deal with.
To place concept into practice in this situation, whilst White ladies and South Asian gals confront sexism and misogyny, the sexism and misogyny confronted by South Asian women of all ages are distinct from that confronted by White women of all ages. Whilst each White Muslim girls and South Asian Muslim ladies face Islamophobia, the Islamophobia that South Asian Muslim girls are subjected to is distinct from that faced by White Muslim girls simply because, when once again, race adds a new intersection of stereotypes and prejudice.
British modern society requirements to stop pretending that racism isn’t an difficulty in the place.
White women are continuously specified the profit of the doubt whilst South Asian women of all ages are not. White women of all ages are taken far more severely, each by culture and in the media, as victims of terrorism – but South Asian women of all ages are not. No make a difference how young South Asian ladies will be, they’ll be explained to that it is by some means their individual fault that they were groomed to have interaction in terrorist activity, while even grown White women’s actions can be excused when there is proof of coercion. British modern society requirements to halt pretending that racism is not an concern in the nation.
Shamima Begum’s scenario presents a apparent information to the thousands and thousands of South Asian Muslim women and ladies in the Uk. It tells them that they are not protected and will not be guarded by the institutions put in location to aid them. They will not get an opportunity to be attempted pretty for their crimes. The United kingdom has despatched out a very clear message to South Asian Muslim ladies that they are conveniently disposable, and that they issue considerably less than their White counterparts.