Konika Dhar, sister of Siddhartha, aka Abu Rumaysah
al-Britani, the baby and gun-toting IS recruit, says that he was brainwashed
and pleads for an opportunity to persuade him to come home. This made me wonder what is meant, in this
context, by brainwashing?
In a fictional, Hollywood world (or Pinewood, if you
think of Michael Cane as the insubordinate British Spy in The Ipcress File)
brainwashing consists of imprisonment, subjugation to extensive re-education,
and torture. Not so extreme, but perhaps
more effective in the real world, re-education camps were established by former
communist regimes in the Far East to teach intellectuals the errors of their
ways. But this was not the case with
Siddartha. His entered into his “re-education”
into quite voluntarily.
Attending prayers, reading religious and political texts,
listening to speeches and having debates with like-thinking people is not
brainwashing, is it? It is a process
that a lot of people go through as they hone their political views and social
world-view. How is this different from students
signing up to the Socialist Society at Fresher's week and gradually drifting
towards The Socialist Workers Party? The
same applies to The Conservative Party or even an Alpha course by the way, because the
exact politics is not important. I can
see a difference where there is deliberate intent on the part of the
leaders and teachers to mislead and to subvert their subjects surreptitiously, but this is more akin to criminal activity, such as sex-trafficking, where a good prospect is held out to a young person until it is too late and they find they are
trapped into something quite different.
So what if it happens to be a banned group such as
al-Muhajiroun, or one of its yet-to-be-banned successors? Generally the leaders of these organisations
do not disguise their views or their intentions, though the ultimate
implications may not be apparent to the less acute acolyte until he or she has been
drawn far enough that extreme outcomes are simply a small 'logical' step
away. But can a reasonable and
intelligent person really be manipulated until they find the warped and extreme
views make perfect sense? Are the alternatives
not still available, so ultimately the extreme path remains a personal
decision? The person concerned may simply
be inquisitive, seeking more information, but they may also be insecure or lonely
and vulnerable to appeals to comradeship and a sense of belonging.
When everyone around you shares the same view, it is difficult to 'break out' of the pattern and view the world objectively. It is well known that the new world of social media means most people too often only communicate with like minded
others. It is all-the-more-difficult in the worlds of
secretive and manipulative cults and political movements, and even before the arrival of twitter, think of the growth of Nazism. A large number, probably the majority, of
Germans supported the abhorrent Nazi cause before and during the Second World
War. If they were not members
of the Nazi party, they were sympathisers who were happy to take advantage of
the benefits offered or even just turned a blind eye and hoped for a
quite life. I don't think all
Germans at the time were evil, but it did not stop the Allied powers fighting a
war against them and in the process killing a lot of them, civilians as well as
military personnel. We did not excuse them because they had been "brainwashed".
Abu Rymaysah al-Britani clearly came under the influence of
people with extreme, and I would say evil, ideas. But he was not brainwashed, a term which surely implies no free
will was involved. Unfortunately
for us, there is an unknown number of people who may be
sympathetic towards similar world views and from these will be drawn the next round of foreign fighters who choose
to join Da'esh or, worse for us, to carry out attacks in the
west.
Killing Al-Britanis in Syria will not solve the problem, but
if anyone chooses to voice an existentialist threat
to the West, including the UK, or to endorse the actions of an organisation as brutal and murderous as Da'esh, then it seems to me that they put their lives at risk. Unfortunately killing
rather a lot of Da'esh fighters might be part of any solution in the end, because
Jeremy Corbyn's plan to negotiate with them will not work any better than Neville Chamberlain's
plans to negotiate with Hitler would have prevented his invasion of Poland. Not that I am advocating outright military action right now; first we would have to find the right political framework to both support such an Acton and also to ensure peace when the fighting finishes, and I cannot for the life of me see what that would look like right now.
Yes we need to address the situation on the ground in
Syria, and the situation of refugees in Europe.
But we also need to challenge the political, and spiritual, narratives
that encourage future Al-Britanis, and their fellow-travellers, and those who
turn a blind eye to the activities of people who promulgate extreme views in
our community. That is not brainwashing;
that is just ensuring that legitimate debate takes place as it should in the free,
liberal democracy that I hope is the UK today.
