‘STATE’ OF TERROR
Nat Geo drama turns spotlight on ISIS
W E’VE all read or heard about people of different nationalities, both men and women, recruited to join ISIS and embark on a reign of terror in the name of the Islamic State.
“The State,” a four-part series airing over two nights on National Geographic, is, if anything, timely and topical in dramatizing the lives of four British Muslims (two men and two women, one with a small child) who cross the border into Syria to meet their destiny.
The series was created, written and directed by Peter Kosminsky (“Wolf Hall”). He reportedly spent 18 months researching Westerners who joined ISIS and returned from that life, interviewing several of those people (anonymously) in trying to piece together what they saw and experienced. And if what we see in “The State” (which originally aired on Channel 4 in the UK) is anywhere close to the truth — and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t — it’s a truly horrifying and compelling look at how terror and modern technology (Facebook, cell phones, etc.) are linked in the 21st century.
The story opens in 2015 as we meet the four recruits leaving behind their lives in Britain for the cause of martyrdom: Shakira (Ony Uhiara), an ER doctor with an absent husband and a young son; Jalal (Sam Otto), a Londoner who’s following in the footsteps of his martyred older brother; Jalal’s pal, Ziyad (Ryan McKen), seemingly more in it for the adventure than anything else; and Ushna (Shavani Cameron), who’s very attached to her cell phone and has immediate sec- ond thoughts upon the group’s arrival in Raqqa.
The men and women are separated (after their computers and cell phones are wiped clean); the women are told, upon their arrival, that they “can’t be single here ... so get yourselves married as soon as possible.” (There’s a “Marriage Bureau” that can help find a husband.) Shakira is disturbed that she can’t utilize her medical training, while Ushna is initially homesick but pulls herself together “to be a lioness among the lions,” as she says. The men, meanwhile, are trained in combat maneuvers (how to fire a rifle and pull someone out of the line of fire) and also burn their passports in an ISIS bonfire — a symbolic gesture of defiance in forever leaving behind “The land of disbelief ” (i.e. the West). They embrace their fate. “Very few brothers live more than a year,” they’re told. They don’t flinch.
Before long, the initiation rites are supplanted by reallife scenarios, and it’s not easy to watch: a man is beheaded in the town square; a Muslim woman has her bare feet flayed for talking to a man without her male guardian (and for not covering her face); the local hospital is bombed, killing several babies (an extremely disturbing and graphic scene). Jalal breaks the rules and calls his mother back in London to tell her about his new life, one of his fellow travelers is killed and he learns the truth about his brother’s death. The men and women are seen actively recruiting on the Internet (Facebook is prominently mentioned) — though the world in which they’re now living drastically differs from what they were promised online.
“The State” sparked a lot of discussion (both positive and negative) when it premiered in the UK last month. It’s billed as a drama — but it is, in essence, TV’s one true scripted reality show.