Citizenship Revocation, ‘ISIS Brides’ and the “War Against Female Terrorism’

By Ramsha Rehan

In February of 2019, Shamima Begum—a nineteen- year-old ‘ISIS bride’ and British national re-entry into Britain four years after she had decided to leave her life in the West to join ISIS in Syria. Britain subsequently denied Begum’s request and stripped her of her citizenship on charges of terrorism, rendering her effectually stateless. Begum, now exiled to a refugee camp in Syria, exists in a liminal space beyond the bounds of state protection and human rights. Begum’s request was met with transnational backlash from Western citizens across Europe and North America. Social media spectators took to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to express their disgust at Begum’s actions and to question her allegiance to the British nation, all in a fast-paced courtroom special episode of—Trial by Media. The stakes are high, social media platforms are bursting at the seams with unfiltered opinions, and these informal adjudicators never fail to deliver their verdict — Begum is a Western traitor.

So, who are these women exactly and how can we understand their ‘transgressions’? ‘ISIS brides,’ as they are dubbed by the media and public, are women or girls who are Western-born, but later migrate to ISIS territory to engage in terrorism, usually through their marriage to an ISIS militant. Begum’s case is not entirely unique, as there have been several women who have left to join ISIS. A quick internet search will reveal countless accounts of ‘ISIS brides’ who use Twitter to express their discontentment with their lives in the West and post images of their new lifestyles. Considering that these women choose to engage in terrorism, in some shape or form, a pressing question arises: why are these women labelled as ‘ISIS brides’ and not merely female militants or terrorists?

The ‘ISIS bride’ is a spectacle to the public both because she is a woman and because she possesses Western citizenship and its associated privileges. The inexplicability of the ‘ISIS bride’ begins with her departure from the caricature of the ‘radical Islamic terrorist’ as male and her embodiment of the terror and violence usually associated with masculinity. The term ‘ISIS bride’ assumes a sexualized role for female militants within terrorist organizations, as the ‘bride’ becomes a subservient entity, bound by the desires of her militant husband. She is not considered a primary, but secondary figure, as she exists only in relation to her male counterpart, her agency realized only within the context of marriage. Newspaper headlines flash across screens all over the world detailing a crisis of vanishing women, who disappear into the abyss of terrorism that is the Muslim world. The East becomes a reflection of Orientalist ideas about the eroticized, exotic East, a site to which young women journey to enact their sexual desires within violent marriages.

Not only is Begum a Western traitor, but she is literally in bed with the enemy. The moral unease that arises within the Western citizen has less to do with any real act of terrorism committed by these women, but with the sexual, intimate relations between the ISIS bride and militant. The inner sexual desires of these women are seen as sinister and deviant, as they choose to marry violent, ‘monstrous’ men. The use of the term ‘bride’ is used negatively and is not linked to notions of femininity and purity which are often associated with the term. Instead, the phrase evokes ideas of suspicion, deviancy and immorality. Discourses on citizenship and terrorism intersect with ideas of sexuality, marriage, intimacy and the family. The removal of or selective citizenship becomes a tool for state regulation of the population, and also delves into the realm of the private as the state comes to regulate the institution of the family.

To crack down on dangerous terrorists seeping in and out of its borders, Britain stripped Begum of her citizenship. Britain's actions were not only a response to the threat posed by ‘ISIS brides’ to the state and its people, but to the arena of speculating informal Jurors. Britain’s removal of Begum’s citizenship is more concerned with her lack of allegiance to the nation, despite the fact that she was born and raised in the UK. National security-based policies, the constricting of borders, and limitations on the rights and freedoms of individuals reflects the ‘war on terror’ rhetoric, a narrative of terror that is embedded into the fabric of Western societies. Every citizen is watcher and trier, and the government dances between public safety and rights infringement under the guise of national security. When citizenship revocation is understood as an extension of ‘war on terror’ policies, it presents a fundamental problem for racial, ethnic and religious minorities - the perpetuation of a Muslim bias to terrorism.

Alongside the state's actions, social media spectators work to informally denationalize these women. In Begum’s case, they attempt to disassociate her from British nationality by claiming she has forfeited her rights to British citizenship, and she is no longer welcome on British soil. This reconveys the idea that citizenship is to be earned and access to its privileges remain conditional. There exists a sense of betrayal as these Western-born women, with the birthright privileges of Western countries, deny Western generosity. Not only does the ‘ISIS bride’ deny these privileges, but she actively criticizes Western countries. The Western public is forced to confront the arbitrary divide between the ‘good Western citizen’ and the ‘bad, foreign outsider. Calls denouncing these women’s actions are laced in anti-Muslim, Islamophobic rhetoric. Angry Twitter users, as they furiously document their crucial take on the matter, seem to be preaching against Islamic doctrines, symbols, and practices, rather than terrorism—thus allowing terrorist and Muslim to become synonymous.

With the added layer of gender and concerns about deviant sexualities in the context of Islamic marriages, Islam is vilified for its oppression of women, and Muslim men become the primary threats to Muslim women. Part of the justification for ‘war on terror’ policies is to liberate and save Eastern women and girls from their patriarchal, oppressive lifestyles. This white savior complex lies at the crux of the anti-terrorism agenda. ‘ISIS brides’ challenge and deny the white, Western savior, in favor of these ISIS militants. ‘ISIS brides’ are then punished for not only denying Western generosity, but for perpetuating their own victimization and oppression by choosing to be with these men.

The figure of the ‘ISIS bride’ is deeply threatening, because she not only affects state security, but challenges western, heteronormative ideals of marriage, intimacy and the family, and the masculine understanding of violence. The use of the epithet ‘ISIS brides,’ rather than female terrorist or militant, indicates the state and public’s concern with safeguarding both the institution of the family and the authentic citizen. As these are considered the only legitimate entities making up the national and private communities. Within cyberspace and the global network of social media spectators, informal tools of denationalization indicate that citizenship must not only be legally earned from the state, but, socially, in the eyes of one’s fellow citizens. What remains is the questionable realm of cyberspace—itself a product of racial, ethnic, religious and sexist bias, that needs to be picked apart and examined as it increasingly influences beliefs, opinions, political rhetoric and state policy.