10 - ‘I Was a Big Girl. I Could Pack My Bags and Leave’: ISIS and Female Emancipation in Tabish Khair’s Just Another Jihadi Jane

Summary

Introduction

When the Bethnal Green trio, Amira Abase, Kadiza Sultana and Shamima Begum travelled to Syria in February 2015, there was a palpable sense of shock and confusion among the British public as to why these schoolgirls from the West would travel to an area of extreme violence. Within a day, British news coverage labelled the girls ‘jihadi brides’ who were naive and had been groomed (Khan 2015). Days later, it emerged that a fourth girl from the same school, Sharmeena Begum (no relation to Shamima), had travelled to ISIS-controlled Syria a couple of months earlier, in December 2014. Aqsa Mahmood, nicknamed the ‘bedroom radical’, a radiography student turned high-profile ISIS recruiter, had been in contact with one of the trio on Twitter (Saul 2015; Buchanan 2015). Just a month after the trio's departure, a travel ban was imposed on five other girls – four of them from the same school as the Bethnal Green trio – after they showed interest in travelling to Syria (BBC News 2015). This exodus of East London girls to ISIS suggests a larger social context affecting Muslim girls which goes beyond personal factors. Issues including social alienation, identity crises, and political differences driven by religious considerations contribute to these women's radicalisation but are often downplayed in the media and political discourse.

Part of this deemphasis owes itself to the popular and misleading label ‘jihadi bride’, which infantilises girls by suggesting they join ISIS in search of romance. Newspaper articles such as a February 2015 piece by Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson perpetuate the label. In a parody of the coming-of-age story, Pearson dismisses the Bethnal Green trio's departure as a classic combination of teenage sexual frustration, strict parents and rebellion. What puzzles Pearson is that these girls seek out environments of known violence and repression rather than liberation. Her final witticism illustrates the image of the terrorist as the ultimate other: ‘If you make your bed with barbarians, you can lie in it’ (2015). Thus, Pearson reinforces binary ‘us versus them’ thinking.