Friday, February 19, 2016

Yearning For The Excitement of a New Life

"We think there's about ten to 12 Canadian women who have gone to [ISIL-controlled territory in] Syria; of those, three have had children and two are currently pregnant."
"There's a kind of trauma that many of these parents live with; they feel that they missed some kind of key sign. A lot have been unable to go to work. At least one father has descended into alcoholism."
"It's not simply that their child has made a mistake [they now have grandchildren in a war zone where they may never emerge alive]."
"Because you have an 18-year-old, you don't associate [these new behaviours] with Syria, you just think you have an asshole kid. In hindsight everything starts to make sense." 
"[In Raqqa], you're not simply raising a child, you're raising the next generation of mujahedeen to protect the caliphate."
Amarnath Amarasingam, post-doctoral fellow, Dalhousie University
    This photo, which depicts Canadian Umm Haritha in Manbij, Syria, was uploaded to Twitter by fellow jihadi wife Umm Layth.
    This photo, which depicts Canadian Umm Haritha in Manbij, Syria, was uploaded to Twitter by fellow jihadi wife Umm Layth. (Umm Layth/Twitter)
"I still can't understand how your kid could do something like that, especially when you did your best like any parent to raise him."
RCAF Cpl. Wayne Driver

"The key factor underlying the decision to 'migrate' is that these are young women who are 'searching' for something."
"Women who migrate -- muhajirah -- are treated more deferentially, and even more so when they become mothers and/or widows of fighters."
Laura Huey, researcher, University of Western Ontario
RCAF Cpl. Wayne Drive was deeply involved in Canada's bombing mission against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. He was helping to train local Kurdish fighters in Western fighting strategies against ISIL. And while in the Middle East he was informed that his son Aaron had been arrested. His son had been attempting to travel to ISIL-controlled territory, attracted to jihad, anxious to become a part of that side of history. In view of his parents' and particularly his father's occupation as a military professional, fully engaged in aiding combatants to more effectively oppose the advance of the Islamic State, his father's amazement at the turn of events can be readily imagined.

And this is precisely the kind of situation and its impact on family that Mr. Amarasingam has identified in his research. His survey into the phenomenon of Islamist jihad has led him to turn to westerners who identify with jihad, those with no history, no tradition, no religious connection to Islam who have chosen nonetheless to identify with it and cast their future destiny in favour of Islam and its exhortation to jihad.Umm Haritha recently left Canada for Syria, where she shared this photo of herself and another jihadi wife walking in the city of Manbij, which is under the rule of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

  • Umm Haritha left Canada for Syria, where she shared this photo of herself and another jihadi wife walking in the city of Manbij, which is under the rule of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). (Umm Haritha/Tumblr) 
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  • Leaving behind heartbroken and confused families who continue to search for the beloved child in the newly emerged self-imposed outcast that the adult version of the child they love has become. Mr. Amarasingam has spoken with recruits of the Islamic State through social media platforms, interviewing fighters at the Syrian border, and promising anonymity he has met with the families of Canadians who have a dreadful secret: children choosing to join the world's most execrable murderers.
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  • So, the parents of children who have chosen to leave the comfort and security of the West in favour of the alluring excitement of an entirely new perspective on life, as foreign settlers in an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East where conflict rages and insecurity and violence is everywhere, also know that if and when their child becomes a parent, they will be grandparents to children never seen, but being trained themselves as future executioners.
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  • As it was explained to Mr. Amarasingam when he asked why ISIL "introduced [children] to war and killing so young", the response from an ISIL fighter was that "Lions are obligated to teach their cubs hunting skills", a seriously glib answer that fails to address the love and care that are attendant normally on a child by concerned parents. 
Canadian women who have so seriously compromised their futures tend, according to Mr. Amarasingam's research, to be between the ages of 19 to 26, approaching Islam as converts with either Christian or secular backgrounds. Alternately they are women who were raised within lapsed Muslim families. He points out a profound difference between Europe and Canada that he has identified in his research. In Europe, radicalized Muslim families take an active role in preparing a child for jihad.

Whereas recruits coming from Canadian backgrounds have determined on their own where their future lies, keeping their thoughts and concerns from their families until the time is right to take the final step separating them from family and all that had been familiar up to that time. Their on-line searches, their new friends and withdrawal from family concerns, overlooked until that moment when the break has been made and families wonder what had gone wrong.

Scene from Manbij, Syria
Umm Haritha, a Canadian woman who married a jihadi fighting in Syria, posted this image of life in the ISIS-controlled city of Manbij to Twitter. (Umm Haritha/Twitter)

The women changed their names as soon as they left Canada and family behind, to live in Raqqa, the northern Syrian city that has become the ISIL capital. Their husbands have been well paid as ISIL fighters, and the families live in requisitioned houses or those which were abandoned by Syrians fleeing ISIL's regime in Raqqa, preferring to become refugees to living under the Sharia-regulating Islamic State.

The educated estimate is that up to 30,000 foreigners out of 86 countries have gone over to Iraq and Syria since the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant made its grand pronouncement of the establishment of its caliphate.

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posted by Pieface @ Friday, February 19, 2016

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