Of kneejerks and extremes...

"Oh, so now she appreciates the NHS? Right. Got it. Now she wants to give birth in an NHS hospital after two babies died of disease and malnutrition under IS! Is that what it takes to realise how good we have it with the NHS? I mean, really..."

That tirade was pretty much my initial reaction to Shamima Begum wanting to come back to the UK to give birth and then live quietly with her baby, when the news broke. But after my outburst, I took on a more measured view - just as extreme examples make for bad law, kneejerk reactions are not usually the best ones for informing policy or making decisions in complex situations.

Let me be clear - I do not recognise her messed-up attempt at feminism. To be casual about the sight of severed heads in bins because they may have once been attached to the bodies of people who may have attacked Muslim women, while she herself was part of a murderous cult in which girls and women in forced marriages are expected to breed more murderous cultists who will, in turn, rape and murder girls and women is nauseating. The two young women in the photograph above*, Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar, are the women who should be dominating the news - they are Iraqi Yazidis who escaped the sexual violence of IS and are now activists who speak out for the victims of the death cult - they are true feminists.

When Begum first appeared on our TV screens and in The Times, thanks to the heroic journalism of Anthony Loyd, we saw her at her most unfiltered. This is not a young woman who has been media-trained to within an inch of her life, this is a woman who is ignorant of how her vile words were playing out with the British public, and, crucially, this is a woman who has not really evolved from the absurd 15-year-old who left for Syria with two equally absurd schoolfriends in March 2015. There was plenty of East End bravado in her defiant tone where remorse should have been.

But I respectfully disagree with those who simply say she should never be allowed back in the UK and that Sajid Javid did the right thing by removing her citizenship. I understand that viewpoint but I do not share it.

Firstly, Javid has rendered Begum stateless - she is only "eligible" for Bangladeshi citizenship. She is not a Bangladeshi citizen. The Bangladeshi government has, quite rightly, asserted that she is not a citizen of their country. Begum was born and raised here. She is not Bangladesh's problem.  

"Eligibility" for citizenship is not the same as being a citizen. I am a permanent resident of the UK but I am not a British citizen. I am an Australian citizen. I am eligible for British citizenship but I have not gone through the process of becoming a British citizen. If I went to Australia tomorrow and committed a terrible crime there, everyone would expect me to be tried under the Australian system. There would be an outcry if the Australian government simply said: "She's eligible for British citizenship, put her on QF1 to Heathrow and they can deal with her." 

Javid should be made to publish his legal advice on the Begum case.

It sets a terrible precedent for revoking citizenship. Imagine, for example, if Britain had a government with a leader who was openly anti-Israel, who viewed Israel as a terrorist state. And then imagine if this future leader of the country used Britain's anti-terrorism laws to convict someone of inciting terror because, say, they donated to or publicly supported the IDF. If the convicted person happened to be Jewish, using the same rationale that Javid has applied in the past week to Begum, this hypothetical PM and Home Secretary might strip that person of British citizenship and declare that because every Jewish person is eligible for Israeli citizenship, they could be deported to Israel, even if they had never been there. 

It's a chilling precedent. 

If Begum returns to the UK, nobody reasonable would advocate that she simply be allowed to go back to Bethnal Green with her son and the rest of her family. She should be apprehended on arrival. It is not unreasonable for her innocent son to be fostered with a view to being adopted, or for her to have to meet those who lost loved ones in the Manchester attacks so they can describe the impact of that unjustifiable act of terror on their lives and communities. She should face the might of British justice to determine if she is guilty of terror offences committed in this country and punished accordingly. There is almost no doubt that a guilty verdict would involve a custodial sentence. She cannot be led to expect that life will return to exactly how it used to be. Her life will be one of permanent restrictions and surveillance.

Equally, due process must be applied. If due process is thrown out the window, we become no better than any of the states around the world that play fast and loose with this essential component of any civilised legal system. I say that as someone who was tried for adultery without due process in the United Arab Emirates - I was never properly informed that I had been charged, my passport was confiscated without explanation, I signed a document in Arabic without a translation, I was never given the option of legal representation, I was tried via an interpreter in the office of a judge, I was very lucky to be found not guilty and not risk a maximum of six years in prison.

Britain should be better than that. Due process is for everyone, not just people we like.

The other sticking point is that if Begum is not brought home to face justice, she and her son are prime targets for people smugglers. It does not take a massive leap of imagination to realise that she could find her way back to the UK or Europe via people smugglers, if the price was right and there were enough morally bankrupt people willing to fund such a venture. The upshot of that scenario is that, as well as enabling one of the most disgusting trades in the world, Begum could end up back in Europe or the UK and the authorities would have no idea. No reasonable person should view that as an acceptable possibility.

It is a mess that started in Britain and Britain can and should be the one to deal with it. It's facile to say "It's not my problem, I didn't contribute to her radicalisation!". I don't think I personally led Begum to run off and marry a jihadi either, but investigations need to take place in Britain, in her community, at the mosque she frequented before she left, among her friends and family, in the online communications she received as a girl who was almost certainly targeted as being susceptible to radicalisation. Now she is an adult, she needs to own her shit - and Britain needs to understand how this shit happens over here in the first place and stop it.

___________________________

* Here are some links to articles about Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/06/nadia-murad-isis-sex-slave-nobel-peace-prize

https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/nadia-murad-and-lamiya-aji-bashar-sakharov-prize-laureates-2016_1501_pk

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-sex-slaves-lamiya-aji-bashar-nadia-murad-sinjar-yazidi-genocide-sexual-violence-rape-sakharov-a7445151.html

Photo credit: European Union. Iraqi Yazidi activists Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar receive 2016 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

#JeSuisTalayotic

I'm back from Menorca where I visited the remains of one of an estimated 300 Talayotic settlements because I find it impossible to travel anywhere without checking out the local ruins. I am also a lot of fun at parties...

Every time I seek out the history of the places I visit, inevitably it is proven that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

From what archaeologists have been able to piece together from the remains of the Talayotic settlements of Menorca, it seems they probably were, like most of us, peaceful people who just wanted to be left alone. Perhaps they could have been an island-based libertarian people if it wasn't for the interferences of the Carthaginians, the Vandals, the Byzantines, the Romans, the Islamic caliphate of Cordoba and finally, the Roman Catholic church.

Over the course of the Talayotics' time on Menorca, from 1400 BC until AD 1287, they consistently favoured round buildings. They knew about farming animals and crops, their houses had kitchens with hearths, they had wells for clean water, there is evidence of early flushing toilets, they were skilled potters, and, before the influences of Islam and Christianity, they had their own religion, possibly based on worshipping fertility, nature or the bull, with complex funeral rituals. At their archaeological sites in Menorca, you can see the taula - structures with smaller rocks balanced on top of larger, upright rocks, like miniature Stone Henges.

There were positive interactions with other cultures through trade, thanks to the island's strategic location on shipping routes to mainland Europe, north Africa and Turkey, creating a vibrant economy and influencing art, crafts, and jewellery trends. Examples of ancient Egyptian artefacts and Carthaginian religious statues have been found on Menorca.

The sea trade led to some people from other countries settling peacefully and productively in Menorca, most likely in the emerging port towns - an early example of beneficial immigration.

But ultimately, the Talayots would not be allowed to live in peace, to enjoy the interactions with new cultures and benefit economically, because their gorgeous, fertile island was just too damn tempting for conquerors. And it turned out to be pretty easy pickings for multiple invaders who would ultimately destroy a centuries-old culture, estimated to have started in 1400 BC.

Just as the despicable barbarians of Daesh see fit to lay waste to the once-magnificent sites of Syria, it is always the ignorant prerogative of conquerors and colonisers to impose their beliefs and ways on people who were minding their own damn business.

The Carthaginians had an early influence on the Talayotic and if it had only been restricted to introducing new tools and ornaments and helping the island's early settlements to develop, they might have come out of this history lesson well. But the Carthaginians and the Romans didn't really get along and fought three long, tiresome wars between 264 BC and 146 BC. As such, Talayotic Menorca became a source of cannon fodder for both sides, starting with the Carthaginian invasion of Menorca is 252 BC, the first chipping away of the peaceful Talayotic society.

As ever, old men were sending young men to die in wars and the young men didn't get any say in their inevitably terrible fates. When Talayotic men were forced to fight for either the Romans or the Carthaginians, neither of whom were benevolent conquerors, it's not hard to be reminded of the same choices facing young men in Syria today. Today, they could find themselves siding with equally religiously conservative forces with the Iranians or with the forces of Assad, a terrible dictator regardless of what his apologists might try and tell you. With those sort of shitty options, it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to work out why fleeing might seem like the best of a bad bunch of choices. Unfortunately for the men of Menorca, escaping the island by sea when the conquerors are controlling the ports probably wasn't feasible.

In 123 BC, the Romans finally achieved their grim dream of conquering the island. This led to the development of the ports of Mahon (now the capital of modern Menorca), Ciutadella (founded by the Carthaginians and the capital from the 4th Century when it became the seat of a bishop, which remains to this day) and Sanitia. Early Christian relics and buildings have been found from this era, such as basilicas from the 5th Century. This was the start of Menorca, and indeed wider Spain, becoming an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic part of the world.

There was a brief blip of literal vandalism, when the Vandals had a go at Menorca around AD 427 but the Romans quickly stamped out that one, it was incorporated into the Byzantine empire, and they had a stronghold on the island for around four centuries.

Depressingly, this represented yet another era of anti-semitism for the appalling annals of world history. As well as the traditional Talayotics, there was a Jewish population on the island. There is no evidence to suggest the Taloyotics ever tried to stop the Jews from observing their faith. Synagogues were built by the Jews, the Talayotics continued to live in round houses and conduct their own religious ceremonies.

Sadly, the Romans weren't quite so cool with Judaism. The Jewish population on Menorca was largely successful and prosperous and in AD 418, Bishop Severus wrote about a forced conversion to Christianity of the 540 Jewish men and women. As well as forced baptisms, the wealthy Jewish families were forced away from the affluent port towns to the hinterlands. Synagogues were burned and Jewish families could only move back to their port homes if they publicly accepted Christianity. The arrogance of assuming that forcing mass conversion to Christianity as a panacea for all ills did not start with Ann Coulter offering that breathtakingly simplistic solution to Islamic terrorism 12 years ago.

Then there was an Islamic caliphate - Menorca was annexed to the Caliphate of Cordoba from AD 903 to AD 1231. Written sources describe a lively economy based on agriculture and a culture of literature. Pottery from this era indicates that it was an artistic period - interestingly, the convent in Ciutadella has a museum which features attractive examples of Islamic pottery. These have been found at Talayotic settlements, indicating these people embraced Islam, leaving behind their still-mysterious traditional beliefs.

The caliphate was known, unlike the modern day caliphate-mad murderers, for advances in science, language, geography, music and fashion. Early Spain first enjoyed toothpaste and deodorant thanks to the Caliphate of Cordoba.

Moors immigrated to the island at this time. In the absence of a 10th Century Menorcan Daily Mail, we are not entirely sure whether the Moors were considered "the kind of immigrants we like" or "invading with their creeping Sharia". What we do know is that the caliphate era was a curious one for religious cohesion. There was a Jewish population on the island and synagogues continued to be built alongside mosques and churches. Jewish stonemasons helped with the spectacular columns of the Great Mosque.

Jews had a higher social standing on Menorca than Christians under the caliphate, although both Jews and Christians had to pay tax to the caliphate. There is no evidence to suggest forced conversions to Islam during this time. It was, on the basis of all available evidence, three centuries of stability for the island and it would be fatuous to compare this to the attempts of Daesh to create a state in what remains of Syria.

It's unclear what life under the caliphate was like for women. However, there are written reports of the Talayotic men refusing payment for their services as soldiers by the Romans and Carthaginians, preferring wine and women to money. Whether the caliphate put a stop to carousing with wine or the using of women's bodies as a commodity for rewarding soldiers is uncertain.

Plenty of history books will tell you that any remnants of the Talayotic world came to an end in AD 1231 with the wording usually along the lines of the people "accepting the Crown of Aragon". This to me smacks of a people browbeaten by centuries of invasions rather than a willing embrace of what was to become modern Spain. The island was left in the confusing position of being an independent Islamic state but also a tributary to King James 1 of Aragon.

It cannot have been a smooth and seamless transition to Aragon rule as there was a violent conquest by Aragon forces between 1287 and 1288 with all Muslims on the island either being ransomed or enslaved to Barcelona, Ibiza or Valencia unless they converted to Christianity.

So, well played, conquerors and colonisers, you all played your part in wiping out a peaceful, productive people.

Of course, the story of conquests on Menorca does not end in AD 1231.

In AD 1558, Barbary pirates - Ottomans who operated from North Africa, destroyed Mahon and Ciutadella in the 16th Century and settled there while also sending off the 3,452 survivors to be enslaved in Constantinope, which strikes me as a dick move given that in previous centuries, the Ottomans (modern day Turks) traded peacefully with the island.

In AD 1713, the British took possession of what was by this time a very Roman Catholic island. Demonstrating that colonisers and conquerors cannot bloody help themselves, the Brits actively encouraged foreign non-Catholics to move to the island. This included Jews who were not well accepted by the now-predominantly Roman Catholic Menorcans. Clergy refused a request from the Jewish community to use a room in Mahon as a synagogue.

In AD 1781, Louis des Balbes de Berton de Crillon, a French Roman Catholic soldier and twat, led the overthrow of the British garrison, returned Menorca to Spain, became the self-declared first duke of Mahon and, because he was just an awesome and peace-loving guy, he gave the remaining Jews four days to leave the island. They were transported from Menorca to Marseilles in Spanish ships. Transportation of Jews. Where have we heard about that before?

So, to recap, the Talayotic people were usurped by a load of fuckery that still goes on - anti-semitism, the forced imposition of religions, false notions of cultural and religious superiority, forced military service, enslavement... And still we don't learn from history. And with this week's ridiculous and awful events in Charlottesville and the pissing contest that rages on between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un, it is hard to be optimistic about anything improving any time soon.

Nuance: the first casualty of war

Nuance is in very short supply at the moment. All over the place, sledgehammers are being used to crack walnuts. Binary thinking is commonplace. Seeking a sensible middle ground is out of fashion. Extremists at either end of the political spectrum gain traction. We are truly living in pathetic times.

And this brings us to the disgusting spectacle of Assad gassing his own people once again in Syria. This was followed by Donald Trump ordering airstrikes without the permission of Congress, although this latest intervention has now received conditional bipartisan support. This is in sharp contrast to Trump's campaign rhetoric about not dragging the US deeper into war in the Middle East. But apparently he saw some distressing footage of gassed "children of God" on telly and now it's bombs away!

This, in turn, caused further astounding spectacles. Trumpian cheerleaders, such as Milo Yiannopolis, Paul Joseph Watson and Ann Coulter, all felt betrayed by their phlegm-haired father figure and swiftly announced their disappointment to the world. They seem genuinely stunned that Trump changes policy like he changes his socks, even though it was clear before the election that his foreign policy was always going to be a hot mess. The poor little snowflakes.

Then there was Friday's Stop The War debacle. Stop The War should perhaps be named Stop The War If It Is Waged By The West But Let's Never Call Out The Crap From Tyrants We Cravenly Apologise For Particularly As Our Chairman From 2011 Until 2015 Is Happy To Cash Cheques from Iranian State TV And Russia Today, but honesty is seldom catchy. @STWIIIWBTWBLNCOTCFTWCAFPAOCFTUTIHTCCFISTART is a rubbish Twitter handle,

For an organisation that professes to believe in dialogue instead of bombs and guns, and claims to support the rights of refugees, they were shockingly disinterested in constructively engaging with Hassan Akkad. He approached the protesters to ask them why they weren't protesting against the Assad regime but he was shouted down.

It was a disgrace. Megaphone-wielding, placard-waving fools, the lot of them. Some tosser yelled: "Keep chanting!". Because that is all these people have. They are part of a particularly loud but pointless element of left, and they are as devoid of nuance as Trump's one-eyed fanatics. And, just like Trump's disciples, they hate constructive discussion and seek to silence anyone who might have a different take on things. They are ferociously pro-censorship unless it's something they agree with, something else they have in common with alt-right lunatics.

Hassan Akkad is a Syrian refugee living in the UK. He has been imprisoned and tortured under the Assad regime. He knows first-hand that Syria is not a triumph of secularism, an offensive and ludicrous claim made by many an Assad apologist.

Akkad is an intelligent man who is worth listening to. Here he is sharing the story of his escape from Syria:

Everyone who howled him down at the Stop The War fiasco should watch that video, hang their heads in shame, and personally apologise to him for failing to engage in dialogue or to even try and understand the story of a refugee. Everyone there was a hypocrite.

The protesters refused to listen to a word he had to say. Akkad knows that Trump has no great affection for the Syrian people. He knows that Trump has his own agenda. He also knows that to oppose Assad is to not be an automatic jihadist. And he understands that destroying the airbase in Syria from above is not necessarily a bad thing. Unlike the Stop The War protesters, he is capable of nuance.

Click here to watch the video he tweeted, where he articulately explains his version of events from the protest.

The simple truths are that Assad and Daesh both need to be stopped. A military campaign solely made up of airstrikes will not achieve this. I am not going to pretend that I am sitting here at home in London holding all the answers to the appalling situation in Syria. War is awful but I do think boots on the ground are needed to wipe out Daesh and quite possibly to help the oppressed people of Syria overthrow Assad. Indeed, it has been reported today that US-supported rebels in Syria, with Jordanian and US support, fended off a Daesh assault. The very nature of the conflict, of the geography, of the joint enemies of Assad and Daesh, mean any military action will be long and grinding.

A humane solution for the people displaced by the conflict is also essential. Syria has degenerated into a place where it is hard to tell who the bad guys are and anyone who whines about young, able-bodied men fleeing the conflict would do well to remember this before shooting their damn fool mouths off from the comfort of countries that are not currently war zones.

Boris Johnson has done the right thing by cancelling a trip to Moscow and attending a G7 meeting instead. Anyone who thinks Putin is not in bed with Assad is either naive or stupid. Johnson is in no way suited to the job of foreign secretary, although at least this means he is not behaving like Basil Fawlty in Brexit negotiations. Whether the G7 meeting will lead to a ceasefire and whether any ceasefire will last longer than a New York minute remains to be seen, but it is better than kissing Putin's arse.

Dialogue is essential, military intervention will be a necessary evil, nothing will happen quickly. And if we listen to the experiences of people like Hassan Akkad, people who have lived through the long-term horrors of life under Assad, it might become clear that removing Assad from power and neutering the outrageous influence of Russia are essential to this tragic, horrific process.





  

Image by zio fabio/Flickr

Learning from history? It'll never catch on...

Imagine this scenario if you will: People in England, including the leaders, consider the country to be under threat by the "other religion". The fear of the "other religion" may not be entirely unreasonable when one considers that countries where this particular faith is the state religion have already been involved in wars with England, and these countries represent an ongoing threat of future wars against this green and pleasant land.

England, with the able assistance of government propaganda, is gripped by a fear of an invasion by the "other religion". People are genuinely fearful that the "other religion" will become the state religion and the principles of this religion will form the basis of English law.

The leaders deal with this perceived threat by throwing vast sums of money at the military in case there is an attack on English soil. They also go apeshit with surveillance and censorship. Spies are operating in England as well as in the countries that support the "other religion". Texts and other paraphernalia from the "other religion" are forbidden. Adherents of the "other religion" are forced to worship in secret and can even be arrested under the guise of national security laws.

Ironically, most adherents of the "other religion" in England go about their business peacefully, practicing their faith privately. They are ordinary people doing ordinary jobs or running businesses. For the most part, they are not remotely interested in proselytising, even though such evangelism is part and parcel of the "other religion".

This is what happened in England in the 16th century. The leader of the country was Elizabeth I. The countries that threatened England included France and Spain and the threats were real and did indeed result in war. The spies of Elizabeth I infiltrated people's private lives. The punishment for practicing the "other religion" included execution for treason by some of the most hideous means imaginable. The "other religion" was Catholicism.

There was even a massacre in Paris at the time - it is estimated that 3,000 French Protestants were killed in Paris on St Bartholomew's Day in 1572 and an estimated 70,000 more were killed across the whole of France. A grim religious civil war gripped France and Huguenot refugees fled the country in fear for their lives, with many finding a safe have in England.

It all sounds a bit familiar.

Despite the horrendous bloodshed - or possibly because of it and the growing popular discontent with a bloated and distant monarchy - the French Revolution ultimately came about in the 18th century and plenty of its seeds were sown with the events of 1572 onwards. From this, a secular France was achieved and freedom of speech was one of the principles of the revolution.

Except now we have a fearful French leadership, a France that, for now, is banning public demonstrations in the wake of the terrible events on November 13. It was heartening to see people in Paris defying this stupid ban this weekend, refusing to be as scared as Francois Hollande appears to be. Excellently, 10,000 people who planned to be part of the global climate marches placed their shoes at the Place de la Republique instead. Regardless of your views on climate change, if you love freedom of speech, this is something to be applauded.

Meanwhile, here in the UK, some people are calling for banning the burqa and increased surveillance even though neither of these things stopped the latest Paris attacks. Over in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders is moronically calling for the Quran to be banned even though banning books is not just profoundly anti-freedom and propagates ignorance, but is as useful as a fishnet condom now we have the newfangled internet. Then again, Wilders is also calling for Jordan, a country that has done some heroic things in terms of coping with Syrian refugees, to be renamed Palestine, so he is not to be taken seriously.

And it's not as if the world is even capable of learning from very recent history. Raqqa, the current target du jour for the west, was bombed by Syria last year. I don't know whether you've noticed but it achieved sod-all.

If I genuinely thought airstrikes would be an effective way to stop those pathetic Daesh losers, and if airstrikes didn't keep killing innocent civilians just as Daesh does, I wouldn't have a huge issue with it. But I am not convinced they will do anything more than create more radicalisation and add to the refugee crisis. And there are reports that Daesh is now encouraging their pitiful fans to travel to Sirte in Libya instead of Syria, where they are also entrenching themselves. It is a grotesque game of whack-a-mole and not one that we can simply bomb our way out of and expect peace at the end.

Airstrikes are generally popular with people who are highly unlikely to be standing underneath one. Attacking from on high comes across as a sanitised form of warfare, like a big video game, one where you don't have to look the people you are killing in the eye. It could well be that boots-on-the-ground warfare, the kind of warfare that has a more targeted approach, will prove more effective in breaking up oil supply lines, in stopping weapons getting into the hands of Daesh, in retaking the Syrian oil installations than flattening Syria - and no doubt Libya next - from on high.

And then then there is the paucity of discussion about an endgame. What should Syria look like if Daesh is ever neutralised? What sort of government should be in place? Are there any plans for job creation and rebuilding the shattered economy?

After Turkey shot a Russian plane down, people seemed to divide into Team Turkey and Team Russia, as if either country has covered themselves in glory of late, and as if the issue is so simplistically binary.

We have Turkey, a nation unfit to be in NATO and certainly unfit to attain EU membership any time soon, complicit in the sale of Daesh oil while continuing their campaign against the Kurds.

And we have Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, is more interested in keeping Assad in power, particularly as he will uphold the 2013 oil and gas deal which is great for Russia but would deny Syria the opportunity to achieve greater energy self-sufficiency.

Energy self-sufficiency would be a tremendous thing for Syria if it ever attains its dream of democracy that started out in 1945 and has been comprehensively shat on ever since. Energy self-sufficiency would also mean Syria is not dependant on Saudi oil - and it is dependence on Saudi oil and revenue from weapons sales that keeps the world passive when it comes to dealing with that absurd kingdom's violent, conservative, oppressive Wahhabism, the very ideology that Daesh spreads in its bid to recruit people.

I don't claim to have the answers to this unholy mess but I am sure that failing to learn from centuries of human history and pushing for simplistic solutions are not going to make the problems go away any time soon.

To the jihadi brides: Stop being so stupid and come home

Honestly, I just want to give Shamima Begum, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana one of my tough-love-cut-the-shit-and-get-your-act-together talks.

Something like this...

Shamima, Amira, Kadiza, you are three intelligent teenagers. You have everything going for you. You have been doing well at school. You have families who love you. You are not homeless. You have enjoyed the financial and educational advantages of growing up comfortably in Britain. And now you are throwing it all away to be "jihadi brides".

Do you have any clue what you are letting yourself in for? Being a jihadi bride is moronic. It sure as hell isn't romantic. Do you think you will be marrying handsome warrior princes like some sort of warped extremist Disney movie? Do you think you will have a choice in the men you marry? And once you are married to these repugnant men, do you think you will have choices about things such as when you have sex, how many children you have, whether or not you have to do tedious household chores, what you can wear, whether you can leave the house, what books you read, what you can see online, what music you listen to, who you can talk to?

You won't have any more choices. You will be silenced. You will become invisible. You will never reach your full potential. You will have no freedom of movement or speech or expression.

You will be marrying men who think women are inferior, who are profoundly anti-education, who use rape as a weapon of war on other women, who think that beheading people and burning people alive are perfectly acceptable things to do.

You will be marrying into a form of extremism that bears no resemblance to the lovely Ahmadiyyan Islamic community in my neighbourhood. The people who attend the mosque in my neighbourhood conduct themselves magnificently with their commitment to education for all, to working with the people of Merton rather than against them, to volunteer for a wide range of charities, to condemn and reject violence, to welcome non-believers as friends into their mosque, to be a part of Britain.

If you come home, you could be part of multicultural, positive Britain. You could join the people who seek to unite rather than divide our communities.

But instead you have chosen to be a part of an evil force that thrives on hatred, that depends on people hating all Muslims, that seeks to undermine everything great about living in Britain.

Here in Britain, you are able to go to school without fear of being shot. You can go on to university, again without worrying that some lunatic will gun you down for daring to be educated. You can marry for love. You can have a career. You can be a mother. You can drive a car. You can travel. You can vote. You do not have to marry the revolting men who are doing their best to make the world a horrific place. You can come home and appreciate how good you have it here in Britain.

I was once your age. And at that silly, wonderful age, I thought I knew everything and that the ridiculous things I did in 1992 were very clever and sophisticated. Like you, I did well at school but I was not a grown-up and neither are you. I am sure you think you are being very clever, daring and heroic. But now I am old enough to be your mothers and I look at the three of you and despair. I have more than 20 years life experience on you. I can see what you are doing and I can see how ridiculous you look.

It'd be easy for me to sit here in judgement of your families, to wonder out loud how the hell they didn't notice something was up. After all, fleeing the country to marry terrorists is an outrageous form of teenage rebellion. It makes sneaking into pubs, smoking a sly cigarette behind a bus shelter or wearing a parental non-approved outfit seem pretty pathetic. Teenagers are good at hiding stuff from their parents, especially their internet browsing history. There is not much to be gained by slagging off your very worried parents.

Governments, airports and airlines will look into how they can stop girls like you from leaving the country to do something as stupid as become a jihadi bride. Your legacy will not be one of religious heroism, exemplary devotion or piety. Your legacy might be something truly pitiful such as new regulations for unaccompanied minors travelling out of British airports. It will be on par with the regulations that require us to hand over nail clippers and 110ml tubes of toothpaste at airports after we've removed our shoes and belts. They will be the kind of regulations that are dubious in their effectiveness and cause people to irrationally curse all Muslims when they are trying to get on a plane to Alicante. For that you deserve a slow hand clap. You will help breed more stupid hatred.

So come home.

There is still hope for you. I believe in redemption and rehabilitation. I do not believe you should be locked up for life if you return to Britain. I believe that you are still young enough to build lives that do not involve joining a terrorist organisation. You three have taken teenage rebellion to a whole new level but you can still come back from this ridiculous path you've all taken.

Or can you?

I am not sure where any of you are right now, or who you are with, or whether you are safe. If you ever read this, I will be amazed. You may find yourselves in appalling situations very soon, unable to escape marriages to men who condone rape and murder. Your freedoms will be lost, your voices will be rendered silent.

But if any of you happen to read this, if you are not already entrenched in marriages that are about propagating violence, if there is any way any of you can turn around, please do so. You will not regret it.



Photo by ColinBroug

IS and the Turkish conundrum

Is Turkey our friend or our foe in the battle against IS? Unsurprisingly, there is no simple answer to this question.

At the time of writing, IS fighters are still besieging the Syrian town of Kobane near the Turkish border. It is still unclear what level of military support the Turkish government is prepared to give the allied forces who have made a piffling start to an already uncertain campaign with airstrikes. We're at war now and boots on the ground are the inevitable next step.

But Turkey's position is a conundrum. While it is easy to criticise the lack of military action by Turkey thus far, the country has taken in more than one million refugees, in particular Kurds (albeit begrudgingly...). Given their noisy neighbours, Turkey's unfortunate geographic position made this situation inevitable but they are doing their best with this situation. Sadly, their best is not enough and international help will be required to ensure refugee camps in Turkey do not descend into disease-ridden disaster areas.

As well as 22 refugee camps, refugees escaping the horrors of IS are also living in temporary accommodation,  such as schools, mosques and parks. Turkey has only received 25% of the funding it requested as part of the 2014 Syria Regional Refugee Response Plan. Something has to give.

Turkey's reluctance to jump into bed with the US is the inevitable result of the country's delicate balancing act between secularism and Islamism. When the modern day Republic of Turkey was formed in 1923 with Mustafa Kemal, better known as Ataturk, as president, it was created as a secular state. It was, and still is, a country where the majority of people are Muslim, either nominally or observant, but other religions are free to exist. You can see mosques, churches and synagogues in the same street in Istanbul, and constitutionally there is no state religion.

However, in recent years, the tide has been turning towards a state that favours conservative Islam over the official secularism and, as such, Turkey's leaders have been reluctant to offend neighbouring Muslim countries. Yet, at the same time, there has been an element of desperation for Turkey to join the EU. For those who would like to see Turkey join the EU, the bad news is that I cannot see that being feasible any time soon.

In the 11 years since I first visited Turkey, much has changed. When I first visited, the currency had recently changed from the Lire to the New Turkish Lire. A whole bunch of zeroes were knocked off the denominations so it stopped being one of those confusing currencies whereby western tourists go to ATMs and are unsure whether they are withdrawing enough cash for lunch or to buy a house. This helped give the currency credibility and some shops started accepting Euros as well - all good if a country wants to be a serious contender for EU membership.

During my first visit, our hire car was pulled over by corrupt police and Stuart, the friend who was driving at the time, was given a speeding fine even though he was not speeding. He was, by far, the most sensible driver of the four of us. The whole situation was bent, I was threatened by a police officer when he caught me trying to sneak a photograph of the situation, and because Turkey was on an anti-corruption drive at the time, we made a complaint when we returned home to Australia. It was dealt with quickly and efficiently and the officers responsible were suspended. This was also promising stuff for an EU aspirant.

But on the same trip, Lorraine, another of my travelling companions, and I went shopping in Istanbul's Taksim Square. Our outing was interrupted by a student protest - nothing unusual in that in many a major city - but what was disturbing was the posse of snipers on top of a tall building, rifles trained on the marchers. The locals took it in their stride but a peaceful protest overseen by snipers is not a hallmark of a country that has completely matured.

The last time I visited Turkey, it was 2009. My then-boyfriend-now-husband and I were taking a long weekend break away from the restrictions of Ramadan in Abu Dhabi, and we enjoyed being able to eat and drink beer in public in broad daylight. We could hold hands in public, it was a nice respite from Ramadan in an officially Muslim country. And Turkey is still a fun place to visit but there are many reports that suggest that under the current government, the temperature has changed and it does not feel like the same secular state that rightly filled many Turks with immense pride.

But within the EU, Turkey's dark side has emerged with the occupation of Cyprus. This has gone on since 1974. About one-third of the country has been annexed by Turkey after a military invasion. It is absolutely astounding that this situation has not been reversed in 40 years. The photo at the top of this blog post is of me looking out to Famagusta, in the occupied part of Cyprus. It was once a popular holiday resort town of about 40,000 people. Like unoccupied Cyprus, Greek Cypriots formed a majority but Turkisk Cypriots lived alongside them.

Since 1974, Greek Cypriots were driven out of their homes, people went missing, journalists have been killed and Famagusta has been left to rot. Byzantine churches which should be protected for their historical significance are in ruins, the only new buildings are mosques but even they are largely empty. As I looked out to Famagusta from a cultural centre rooftop, I did not see another living soul through my binoculars. There were Turkish military checkpoints and buildings, a UN checkpoint that looked about as useful as a fishnet condom, and the rest of the buildings were the homes and businesses that have been left to decay.

Just as the UN High Commission on Refugees has been embarrassingly ineffective in helping Turkey manage an increasingly overwhelming displaced persons situation, the UN peacekeepers and negotiators have not really done much to ensure Turkey stops their absurd occupation of a sovereign nation. And it's not as if all of occupied northern Cyprus has become some sort of IS-endorsed Islamic wonderland - a lot of money is being made there via casinos. It is a tragic farce.

I understand Turkey feeling caught between a rock and a hard place with the looming threat of IS, an awful refugee situation and a growing anti-American element. But if they are at all serious about having any credibility as a major international power, they need to get the hell out of Cyprus. Their soldiers have far greater battles to fight closer to home and they are not just of the military variety.

One state? Two states? ISIS? IS? What's going on in Syria? It's never simple in the Middle East...

Another day, another broken ceasefire, another attempt to get Israeli and Palestinian leaders around the table, another round of futile arguments on social media... And so it goes on and on. It all reminds me of a Facebook argument that broke out on my Facebook page in about 2008 about Israel and Palestine which led to me defriending someone after he started out arguing eloquently for Israel but ended up throwing an ugly racist insult at another friend. Six years on, the same arguments are cropping up on social media and it seems just as pointlessly circular this time around.

But what is interesting is that I have observed with the 2014 round of social media debates is that many people from across the political spectrum are advocating a one-state solution rather than the well-worn "we support a two-state solution" rhetoric that politicians, safely away from the threat of either Israeli or Hamas rockets, like to trot out in a weedy attempt to look fair and balanced.

The obvious problem with a two-state solution is that no matter how borders are drawn, yet again, there will be angry, unhappy people, there will be more displaced people, there will be people left homeless and possibly stateless too. Any attempts to draw boundaries for two states will highlight that this conflict goes beyond religion because everyone will want their land to include the fertile parts, the pretty tourist draw cards, the bits with natural gas reserves and so on...

As the images of death and destruction from Gaza have become part of our living room furniture yet again, it is clear that the constant retaliation from both sides is not doing anything to get the Middle East anywhere near a lasting peace. The hatred is palpable and it not concentrated to the battered shred of land that is the Gaza strip.

Horrible outbreaks of anti-semitic and anti-Islamic sentiments, all of which reduce religions to stereotypes and ignore the diversity that exists within both faiths, are not helping anyone. So many ridiculous and awful things have happened that it is hard to know where to start with calling out the bullshit behaviour - Hamas hiding weapons in supposed places of safety, images of Israelis getting comfortable with a few brewksis to watch attacks on Gaza, George Galloway declaring Bradford an Israeli-free zone, Joan Rivers declaring that Palestinians deserve to die, the banning of a Jewish film festival in London, and the banning of an Edinburgh Fringe Festival show by an Israeli group that promotes Jewish-Arab co-existence, IDF soldiers leaving racist graffiti, urine and bowel movements in Palestinian homes... All these things are terrible and moronic and it just goes on and on and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight.

Today, we have a lack of enthusiasm for Egypt-mediated peace talks which, given they are about as neutral as Liberace's living room, is entirely understandable from all sides. But if a one-state solution emerges from this mess as a more realistic prospect, it is interesting to speculate on what this might look like. It'd be amazing if everyone around the negotiating table could even agree on a name for this new state, and even if they did, its citizens would probably refer to themselves as hyphenated nationalities, like Italian-Americans, but I digress. We are not even close to that level of nitty-gritty detail today.

Do we dare to dream of a secular state where everyone is free to practice their religion in safety, where churches, mosques and synagogues can exist in the same street without violence erupting, where atheists are allowed to get on with their lives without interference from any religion, where your sexuality is not a criminal offence, where tourists can visit and roam the whole country in total safety, where children are not raised to hate anyone, where my friends with Palestinian passports but have never set foot in Palestine can finally return home, where everyone has equal access to education and opportunity, where women can dress as they please, where there is no need to conscript young people in an army and imprison them if they conscientiously object?

But who should try and negotiate such a solution? For starters, probably not any of the nearby Arabian Gulf nations. The combined economic might of the Arabian Gulf nations could pay for a Palestinian Iron Dome and then some, but these states instead pay lip service to supporting Palestine and send aid such as blankets and medical supplies. The leaders of the UAE, as well as Saudi Arabia, choose their words very carefully when it comes to speaking out on behalf of Palestine. After all, there are alliances with the US that they do not want to jeopardise. And if their leaders were seen to be calling for a new secular state with democratic elections and freedom of religion, that would reignite the pro-democracy campaigners who stuck their heads over the parapet during the Arab Spring only to find themselves silenced or imprisoned or lashed. It has been suggested by many analysts that Qatar, among others in the region, supports Hamas (and the US sells billions of bucks worth of weaponry to Qatar so, once again, the moral high ground turns to quicksand...).

I could muse on who the hell can fix this this all day long but it would only be a matter of time before someone chimes in with: "OK, Gaza is a bad situation but what about ISIS?". ISIS, or IS as they are now being called in today's new bulletins, is completely appalling. Horrific. Beyond vile. A tragedy for Iraq and beyond. They are all about a ruthless land grab achieved through the mass killing of Muslims who don't strictly adhere to their narrow interpretation of a faith that has 72 sects, and of Christians, of children, babies, anyone who gets in their way, basically.

IS is such a revolting organisation that it doesn't actually matter that the stories of forced, mass FGM were never proven - their heinousness is such that there is no shortage of appetite for airstrikes to blast them off the face of the Earth. Of course, nobody is saying the the Kurds, who as I write this, have, with the help of the US, managed a victory over IS fighters in two Iraqi towns, have one of the biggest problems with FGM in the region. But nothing is ever simple, nothing is ever black and white in the Middle East. Equally, the situation in Syria has created unholy alliances as intervening nations try to decide what group is the least dreadful.

And while all this is going on, while my Twitter and Facebook feeds continue to fill up with more and more arguments that will never be seen by Benjamin Netanyahu, Khaled Mashal, Mousa Abu Marzouq, Mahmoud Abbas, Tzipi Livni, Moshe Ya'alon, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Bashar al-Assad, Zahran Alloush, or anyone else who can actually do something about any of this crap, innocents continue to be killed, families separated, people displaced, and, hey presto, we have another refugee crisis on our hands.

Perhaps a one-state solution could honour the original spirit of the creation of the state of Israel and be a safe haven for refugees displaced by these latest Middle Eastern conflicts, regardless of religion. There is a long way to go before that idea is even remotely feasible but, as far as aims go, it sure beats the aim of obliteration in anyone's name.