Shamima Begum: Issues and non-Issues

The recent discovery of Shamima Begum in a Syrian refugee camp has not exactly shown the British Government at its brilliant best - as if this government ever could be brilliant. On the one hand, we have the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, writing in The Times that he would do everything in his power to stop her return. On the other hand, we have the Security Minister, Ben Wallace, saying that she has the right, as a British citizen, to return. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing! Besides this, international law states that no person can be made stateless. This, together with her family's impassioned appeals for her return, some sympathetic voices in Parliament and some of the media surely points to the probability of her return in the near future, making the present controversy something of a non-issue, given the fact that she has a right of re-entry.

The outrage at her probable return, however, is an issue. Many thousands of people, not just the extreme right and the tabloid press, are outraged at the possibility of Begum's return. Over 100, 000 people have signed a petition calling for ex-ISIS members to be banned from returning to the UK - 3000 in Merseyside alone. The Sun newspaper, that organ of impartiality, speaks for many when it says: 

"Jihadi bride Shamima Begum must never set foot in Britain again". 

I have some sympathy for this viewpoint, even though I do not share it. Ms Begum knew full well what kind of an outfit ISIS was before she left Britain with two friends when she was only 15. She knew of the atrocities Daesh were committing - the burning to death of a downed Jordanian pilot had happened just before she set off to join Daesh. Besides this, she knew of the terrorist attacks here in the UK which claimed the lives of so many of her fellow British citizens. In her first two interviews with The Independent and Sky News, she expressed no remorse whatsoever for any of the attacks in Europe, or the crimes against the Yazidis, Christians, Kurds, Shias and captured Iraqi military by her Dutch husband's comrades-in-arms (and, more than likely, him). In her third interview since discovery, with the BBC, she does express sympathy for the victims of the atrocities. To my cynical eye, it looks staged, but perhaps I am being too harsh. She does, however, seem sincere in her wish to return home and genuinely concerned for her new baby. Interestingly enough, she has named her son "Jarrah", after an Arab warlord who lived 1, 300 years ago, and specialised in massacring Jews. Begum is clearly still under the influence of radical Islamic ideas and will bear watching and/or prosecuting when she comes "home", but we must bear in mind that 400 former Jihadis are said to have returned to the UK already. Since some are probably ex-fighters, is it right for us to refuse entry to a young mum and her baby? Perhaps she is truly sincere when she told the BBC:

"I actually do support some British values and I am willing to go back to the UK and settle back again and rehabilitate and that stuff."

 The Begum family lawyer descended into pomposity when he said that Ms Begum was being treated worse than a Nazi war criminal; he clearly doesn't know much history. She must face investigation, trial and surveillance when she returns, but her youth surely qualifies her for an attempt at rehabilitation. 

Please note - I am not pleading for leniency for Ms Begum. Even she realises that she will be investigated thoroughly upon her return if it happens. She may well face a prison term and, even upon release, she will be a hate figure. Bethnal Green residents fear a right-wing backlash should she ever returns to live in her parents' home, and she may be forced to change her address, name and appearance.
To conclude, I have to say that I do understand why so many British people think that ex-ISIS/Daesh loyalists should be barred from return, but there is a historical precedent for the rehabilitation of renegades. In 1944, the Nazis managed to recruit 57 British and Commonwealth POWs into a crackpot unit called "The British Free Corps". This collection of former Mosleyites and misfits included some strange and sinister characters. There was one Francis McLardy, an ex-Blackshirt pharmacist from Liverpool; Private John Eric Wilson of No. 3 Commando who was "sexually obsessed"; most sinister of all was one Thomas Cooper, who had previously served in the SS and bragged how he had shot 200 Poles and 80 Jews in one day in Warsaw.All British Free Corps members were rounded up after the war. Yet, as Guy Walters says:
"...the sentences meted out to these traitors were surprisingly lenient".
Cooper was sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment and released in 1953; McLardy was sentenced to  15 years in prison, but served only seven. Many were either fined or not tried at all, despite being obvious traitors. Walters goes on to say:
"...members of the BFC reintegrated themselves into British society with little difficulty after they had served their prison sentences".

I hope I've made my final point clear: if we can rehabilitate a bunch of fascist traitors and murderers, shouldn't we at least try to do the same for a deluded young mum of 19 who claims never to have fired a shot?