We must not let Shamima Begum’s new glamour blind us to the truth
Shamima Begum – the schoolgirl who, aged 15, left her East London home in 2015 for Syria to become an Isis bride – is thin, young, and has striking features. I can see no other reason why she has now become something of a cover star, gracing the front page of a magazine and looking sultry on the BBC website, which is promoting a new documentary about her: The Shamima Begum Story. It is extraordinary. In full possession of her faculties, she committed herself to a sadistic, genocidal group of terrorists and now she is being feted as some sort of celebrity.
Yes, she was 15 when she went to Syria, but what followed were very grown-up choices and experiences. Not only marrying a jihadist and having three children with him but, according to Syrian witnesses, carrying a Kalashnikov and earning a reputation as a strict morality police “enforcer” over other women. She was also alleged to have stitched suicide explosives into vests.
She now says she regrets joining Isis but it wouldn’t be mad to think this is the remorse of convenience: compared to Isis-ravaged Syria, London is veritable heaven.
So no, I do not think Begum should be on the cover of magazines looking sultry or sexy or sympathetic. I think she should be regarded as someone who did exactly what she wanted to do: indulge in a nihilistic taste for evil.
If it helps, perhaps we should imagine a male Isis fighter from Britain photographed looking winsome. Jihadi John (Mohammed Emwazi), an Isis executioner (now dead), for instance. Or even Begum’s dumpy-looking Isis husband, Yago Riedijk, a Dutchman suspected, while still in Arnhem, of plotting an atrocity in Europe.
Hard to imagine, isn’t it? That’s because, in reality, our appetite for seeing people like this glamourised in any way is, in fact, thin. And we must not let Begum’s youth and looks blind us to how repellant she is – until laboriously proven otherwise.