Shamima Begum is a polarising individual that causes a lot of controversy in the UK people, from some believing that she was trafficked as a child and and deserves to be treated as a UK citizen, while others believe that she made her bed when she travelled to join the Islamic state terrorist group and should pay for that decision.

In this documentary we get to speak to Shamima herself and understand why she did what she did, how it was for her, and what she expects to get out from being able to speak to the public in this way. I think the first issue with Shamima is the fact that she is clearly still indoctrinated into the ISIS state of mind, she has lived under their rules for so long she can’t seem to remember what life was like before, and this is all that there is when that is anything from the truth. I think the fact that she doesn’t show much emotion within the documentary and seems almost a bit blase with everything that happened doesn’t show her in the best light, because she seems to be un-remorseful and just dictating what happened to her with no connection to it or what that means to the public, especially people who have been deeply affected by what IS have done in the UK and how those scars will remain forever.

Shamima was 15 when she travelled of her own accord to Turkey to get to the Islamic state with two of her friends, and it seems another one of her friends who had already gone over to the terrorist group was the one that was pushing for the other girls to come join her and made it seem like this wonderful place that was shown in all their propaganda videos, when really it was anything but. Shamima was put with a man who became her husband, who apparently was quite nice at the start but soon became very abusive and controlling as is to be expected by their rule, and unfortunately she also lost three children after birth and suffered two miscarriages on top of that. No woman deserves to go through that, no woman deserves to have the pain of their children that they spent hours of agonising birth to just die because of the world that they were bought up in.

I think the part where the UK press messed up the most was interviewing Shamima after she had literally just given birth. She was conducting interviews a mere few days after her child was born, after already having lost two, and they were pushing her for questions and comments on the Islamic State when clearly no one’s going to be in the right mind for that. She’s stuck in a camp where she doesn’t know how she’s going to survive in this world and she’s being drilled full of opinions and questions that at that point I think she didn’t need to answer. I believe everything came out at the wrong time and Shamima, at that point, wasn’t in the right state of mind and was still very indoctrinated as she is now. Do I believe that she should have had her UK citizenship stripped? No, I do not. I believe that she deserves a fair trial to be prosecuted for the crimes that she committed in joining the terrorist group, but she deserves that to be done in her own country and to be brought to justice that way.

I don’t believe just dropping her in this camp and leaving her there is the best way to go about things because then she can stay indoctrinated, she can stay stuck in this bubble of terror and not actually be criminalised for what she decided to do. Yes she was young and yes she was impressionable, but that isn’t always an excuse, we all do stupid things when we’re young but joining a terrorist group is not one of them. I believe she deserves to come home to be tried in her own country and serve the time that she needs to for the crimes that she has committed in joining a terrorist group against her own country, but it seems that is a decision that still needs to be made.

What do you think should happen with Shamima Begum?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding