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Why Do We Underestimate The Role Of Women In Terrorist Organizations?

This article is more than 5 years old.

MONTANA LOWERY for The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/bodyguard-staranjli-mohindra-nadia-isnt-islamophobic-stereotype/

In the United Kingdom, the BBC series Bodyguard is proving to be very popular, with its finale being watched by over 10.9 million people.

While I have yet to watch the show myself, I believe that the plot centers on Police Sergeant David Budd, who is assigned to protect an ambitious Home Secretary by the name of Julie Montague.

The twist in the series finale focuses on a Muslim woman who is revealed to be a terrorist mastermind and expert bomb maker. While many have come forward and criticized such a character depiction as being Islamophobic, the actress playing the terrorist, Anjli Mohindra, has said that the role was ‘empowering’.

The character transformation leaves open various questions on the role and motivations of women in terrorist groups.

In 2015, we were shocked that women – and girls – were voluntarily placing themselves in harm’s way by traveling to join the Islamic State. Many of them did so in groups, such as Amira Abase, Shamima Begum, and Kadiza Sultana from Bethnal Green, in East London. Others traveled with their families and small children. When there, they served as recruiters and radicalizers, the mothers of the next generation of fighters, and facilitators of violence by providing support to their husbands.

When trying to understand these ‘pull’ factors, perhaps one of the most unhelpful monikers used by the British media at the time was that of the ‘jihadi bride’. Here, women involved were seen as meek and manipulated, when in fact, many of them had done due diligence before making their decisions: communicating with those already in Islamic State, reading material online, and even leaving letters for their families back in the United Kingdom justifying their decisions.

It is important to remember, moreover, that Islamic State was the first terrorist organization to spearhead a systematic campaign to reach out to women – using gender specific propaganda to do so. The group later inspired others, including the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban, or TTP) to follow suit and produce content tailored specifically for its ‘jihadi sisters’, and elaborate on their role in promoting the mujahideen (fighters).

Key to the propaganda used to appeal to women was the idea that by joining such groups and contributing to them – be it as mothers, wives, nurses, or teachers – they were able to reverse the ‘ills’ they faced in the West. This was coupled with the idea that the hardships that women would have to endure by joining a terrorist organization - and there would be many - were divinely mandated. The premise remained that, for these recruits, the Western model for women had failed, and that migrating to Islamic State-held territories, or joining a terrorist group, held a solution. Women would be freed from daily degradation and disbelief, and instead assimilated into a tight-knit collective “sisterhood” that would provide them with a network of support and friendship. Reflective of this, the ideas of redemption and deliverance tended to be directed to females by female writers and female recruiters.

Another constant theme in Islamic State propaganda was that supporting the “caliphate” by making it grow and flourish was the job of everybody. For women, this took the role of creating and educating the next generation of fighters, as well as supporting their spouses as soldiers.

Such propaganda was consumed by both men and women. The group was able to leverage negative grievances like marginalization and dislocation with promises of utopian state-building and camaraderie, in a manner unrivaled by other groups at the time.

The one thing we can learn from the final episode of Bodyguard, therefore, is that the discussion on the radicalization of women is overly gendered and, all too often, predicated on misconceptions.

In reality, when it comes to joining violent extremist causes, women are susceptible to the very same processes as men: narratives, ideology, grievances, and various push and pull factors.

Therefore, any policy that focuses on preventing women being recruited in this way must reappraise our attempts to counter the twin processes of female radicalization and recruitment, in line with general counter-radicalization, but using women as specific entry points.