The Devaluation of the Second-Generation Citizen
In the recent coverage of Shemima Begum, the British teenager who left to join ISIS and now wants to return home, there have been two main narratives: either she must never return to the UK, or she must come back to face justice. But there has been one angle lacking in the public conversation and yet is the most important angle to examine — the fact of the matter is, a 15 year old girl born and raised in Britain decided it would be wise to leave her family and everything she knew behind in order to join a death cult. What made her do this? As Oxford student Kiran Samrai tweeted, “not once has she been asked what was wrong with her life in the UK before she left. …Asking ‘what made you want to come here?’ is not the same as ‘what made you leave home?’”
Radicalization is not merely a British issue but an issue across Western Europe: the Charlie Hebdo, Paris, Brussels, and Manchester attackers were all second-generation citizens. According to the El Cano Royal Institute, a person with Moroccan heritage is more likely to be radicalized if they live in Spain than if they live in Morocco. This is true whether they are Moroccan immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, with the second-generation being much more likely than are immigrants themselves to become Jihadis. So we must ask: why do children who grow up in Europe turn against their countries?
To begin to understand this phenomenon, I turn your attention to American comedian Hasan Minhaj, who is of Indian-Muslim heritage. In 2017, Minhaj gave an interview to National Public Radio’s Fresh Air in which he described the morning of September 12, 2001. The family’s car had it’s windows smashed. Minhaj was 15 years old at the time and understandably angry. His father, meanwhile, quietly took a broom and dustpan and cleaned the glass. Minhaj said, “My dad’s in the middle of the road, sweeping glass out of the road like he works at a hate-crime barber shop…I run up to him and am like, ‘Dad, why aren’t you saying something? Say something!’ He looks at me and he goes, ‘Hasan, these things happen and these things will continue to happen. That’s the price we pay for being here.’”
While joining ISIS is inexcusable, the UK and other Western countries must account for their own actions. For whenever “legitimate concerns” are raised in regards to immigration, the claim that “immigrants don’t integrate” is often stated by native populations. Yet arguably, the issue lies more with the refusal by native populations to see immigrants and, more notably, their offspring as “real” citizens. According to second-generation identity polls in the UK, about 90% of British-born residents with immigrant parents view themselves as British. This is a higher rate of Britishness than the population of Scotland, and a much higher rate than that of the Northern Irish. Yet politicians from mainstream parties continue to allow these doorstep comments regarding immigrants to make it onto campaign stages, with nary a defensive statement towards those being discussed. Or, at best they muster “immigrants over the years have made a big contribution to our country, but.”
Thus, children of immigrants are born and raised in a country that clearly does not value their parents, and also does not appear to value their existence as much as it values their native peers. In his Fresh Air interview, Minhaj said, “growing up, going to school, taking honors Gov[ernment] in high school, and learning about equality and civil liberties, you actually at a young age have this sense of optimism where you’re like ‘I am equal, that means I shouldn’t be treated this way.’ And that’s where there’s there this big sort of differentiation between us and our parents.” The children are told that they are equal, and yet there is a palpable feeling that they are not truly members of the society. Given this reality, it is not difficult to understand any sense of bitterness that might arise in these children — these citizens.
In the book Islam, Migration, and Integration: The Age of Securitization, by A. Kaya, which examines the Muslim diaspora across Western Europe, a 17 year old interviewed said that in his native Belgium, the native population makes it clear that he is not a true Belgian. “As a response to this categorization of exclusion, he tends to demonstrate stronger loyalty to Turkey and Turkishness. This state of feeling even more Turkish is actually an individual tactic to overcome exclusion from within the Turkish nation: ‘when we go to Turkey, we are not regarded as Turks. The neighbours in the village call us unbelievers. They sell us things in the market at very high prices, they cheat us.’” In simplest terms, both countries reject him but he believes that he has a better chance of being welcomed in Turkey than in Belgium. But in order to achieve this goal, he must first prove that he is not an “unbeliever.”
This can be where ISIS propaganda inserts itself. As the American State Department admitted, “what we’re combating with ISIL’s propaganda machine is something we have not seen before.” The organization sells a narrative of adventure and a chance to prove religious devotion to teenagers who are straddling two identities. No doubt there are visions of “revenge” as well; a retaliation of sorts against a home country that seemingly belittles them and their families.
There has certainly been action taken to counter ISIS’s narrative. The Prevent program, for example, was established in the UK by the Labour government following 9/11 (and greatly expanded in 2011 under the Conservatives) to combat radicalization. The program is controversial, however. British Muslims have long claimed that the program unfairly targets them. Examples cited for this concern include an incident in 2015, when a postgraduate student of counter-terrorism studies was questioned multiple times because he was seen reading a textbook about his subject in the Staffordshire University’s library. More recently, a 13 year old boy in Islington was questioned after his teacher reported him for using the term “eco-terrorist” during a classroom discussion regarding environmental activists.
Between April 2012 and January 2014, 67% of referrals regarded concerns over Islamic extremism, when only 5.6% of the English population, and 1.5% of the Welsh population are Muslim. As Miqdaad Versi wrote in The Guardian, “Muslims have an approximate 1 in 500 chance of having been referred to Prevent last year, approximately 40 times more likely than someone who is not a Muslim. The threat, quantified by the number of terror arrests, is approximately five times greater from “Islamist” terrorism compared to “extreme rightwing” terrorism.”
Even more damning, the Prevent program only exists in Great Britain. Thus, Northern Ireland — the nation in the United Kingdom most likely to experience radicalization and terrorism — is excluded. When Gavin Robinson MP question this, he was supposedly told, “don’t push the issue too far. It is really a counter-Islamic strategy.”
The concept of Prevent is important. Given the tragic incidents in the UK and across Western Europe over the last four years, nobody will claim that Islamic extremism is not an issue. But in its current form, it is difficult to see how young British Muslims can feel safe and equal in British society when they might find themselves questioned over terror suspicions after they get over-excited during a conversation about Greenpeace while their classmates who participate in Yellow Vest rallies are seemingly ignored.
But most detrimental of all to the cause of second-generational equality has been the government’s announcement to revoke Begum’s British citizenship, a move this government has conducted in the past against other ISIS members. A snap poll released on February 20, the day after this announcement, revealed that 79% of the British public think that the government should have the power to take citizenship away, and that Begum should lose hers. When asked if they still felt that way if that decision would make a person stateless — which is very much illegal — 65% still answered yes.
If the UK wants to ensure that fewer citizens become radicalized, this is absolutely not the correct decision. What this move does more than anything else is sends a clear message to every single second-generation British citizen — Muslim and non — that their citizenship means less than that of their native peers (as well as every Jewish person in the country). The fact that the vast majority of their fellow British citizens think that that is acceptable further proves to any second-generation citizen that they will never be seen as truly British. And it is this component of the radicalization conversation — this lack of sense of equality on the part of native populations — that is severely lacking, and this component that must be drastically overhauled at every level.
The allowance of native populations to continue to cast prejudices onto the children of immigrants — children who are born and raised in the West — has created an environment that allows for radicalization. As Dr. Alita Nandi put it at an event held at the London School of Economics this March, “one in ten ethnic minorities report they have experienced racial and ethnic harassment over the last one year…If this becomes a repeated experience, how British would you feel?”
This by no means gives Begum and other radicalized citizens a pass. She should be allowed to return to the country of her birth, but she should then be prosecuted. The argument that she was only 15 at the time of her decision can perhaps be used to give her a lighter sentence, but this is not normal teenage rebellion and while western countries have actions to account for, this hostile climate is not an excuse for what she did. But the UK and other western states must atone for their actions in this situation, and work towards ensuring native populations treat immigrants and their offspring as equals.
