Shamima Begum's case should force us to rethink citizenship

The crisis of statelessness plagues the world; an estimated 10 to 15 million people are not recognised as nationals.

The United States Supreme Court once described the stripping of citizenship as "more primitive than torture," and yet we see an increase in this violent trend which disproportionately impacts poor and racialised minorities. This includes 1.9 million people in Assam, India; the Rohingya community from Myanmar; Kurds across Syria and Iraq; and the Roma population in Europe, to name a few.

In the case of Shamima Begum, former Home Secretary Sajid Javid made an order stripping her of her citizenship, as he appealed to the populist mass media outcry at the time. This was seen as Javid's pathetic attempt to become prime minister, and whilst it failed to deliver him the seat of power, Begum’s new-born baby Jarrah, died following his decision.

''The refusal to acknowledge that Shamima Begum’s case only exists because we didn't flinch when British-Lebanese citizen Bilal al-Berjawi, had his citizenship revoked, for example, prevents us from grasping things at the root, which is the only means to urgently transform our reality.''

To make matters worse, The Times reported that the London Metropolitan Police knew that a spy working for the Canadian intelligence service had helped Begum alongside her school friends, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, to join IS in Syria in 2015.

Despite continuous information released over the last few years that reaffirms the role of state cohesion and predatory grooming, Begum still languishes in a refugee camp. Her life seems to be a political play for all.

Learning from past mistakes

This year the introduction of Clause 9 to the Nationality and Borders Act, which exempts the government from having to give notice when depriving someone of their citizenship if it is not “reasonably practicable” to do so, naturally led to mass mobilisation. However, lost in the public outrage was that Clause 9 is only a symptom of the broader issue of statelessness, deprivation and counter-terrorism laws. Not to mention that this has been ongoing for the last twenty years since the then Labour government passed the watershed Terrorism Act 2000, which was then followed by a barrage of laws and powers.

Our anger, energy, and organising will therefore always be misdirected and misplaced unless we confront how we got here. Begum’s story is crucial as it is a current campaign that bridges the decades of past policies.

The refusal to acknowledge that Shamima Begum’s case only exists because we didn't flinch when British-Lebanese citizen Bilal al-Berjawi, had his citizenship revoked, for example, prevents us from grasping things at the root, which is the only means to urgently transform our reality.

Indeed in 2003, when Abu Hamza's citizenship was deprived, all those concerned with civil liberties failed to realise how the moment would alter everyone’s relationship with citizenship and Britain indefinitely. We cannot underestimate the fact that then PM Tony Blair ultimately expanded the scope of citizenship because of this one man.

Begum, was only three years old when the Hamza Amendment came into power.

Today, 6 million British citizenships could be threatened, reinforcing that racialised communities, particularly those who do not fit into the "good migrant" category (though even this is ever shifting depending on those the state wishes to scapegoat), will never quite fully meet the criteria of “Britishness”.

As we have witnessed with Begum, whose citizenship deprivation took place against a backdrop of mass public support across the UK – including from Muslims. Whether knowingly or not, this has secured a life filled with risk and considerable hardship for her and others who may be endangered should they meet a similar fate.

Worse than this, non-citizens are more vulnerable to "premature death," as academic Ruth Gilmore explains.

Rethinking citizenship altogether

In reality, Muslims have been facing deprivation orders since before the introduction of Clause 9; therefore, only rallying or organising around the ‘new’ fears is short-sighted and dooms us to end up in the same place as before.

The fight must also be broader and challenge the very function of counter-terrorism policies.

The charge of “terrorism” opens people up to such violence; it snuffs out any traces of humanity an individual might have, pulling them into a black hole of legality and ethics and flipping ‘innocent until proven guilty on its head.

There is little to no public outcry over mass human rights abuses committed against you or your family if you are labelled a “terrorist”; instead, it is now well within the realm of morality, while nuance and understanding are rendered suspect.

Helping Households Under Great Stress (HHUGS) is a UK charity that provides financial, emotional, and practical support to Muslims impacted by counter-terrorism, national security and extremism-related laws. They have a list of countless case studies of families and individuals affected by these draconian laws, including Babar Ahmed who was arrested in 2003 under the Terrorism Act and subjected to physical, sexual & religious abuse. He was left in UK prisons for 8 years without trial. After spending another 3 years in solitary confinement in the US, in 2015, the judge declared, “this man is not a terrorist. He’s a good man, he’s not a threat to anyone.” He was subsequently allowed to return back home.

In the case of Shamima Begum, we can see the same instruments are being utilised against her, and the boundaries of acceptability are redrawn. It became perfectly acceptable to strip the citizenship of a 19-year-old who had been groomed as a child, and to let her children die in a camp.

Statelessness is after all part of the broader problem of citizenship, as Professor Dimitry Kochenov explains. Around the world, we can see that play out. Citizenship institutionalises otherness, reinforces inequality, preserves state interests and justifies disenfranchisement as well as humiliation. It also leads to bodies of those who did not win the "birth right lottery" washing up on Britain's shores. Its roots must therefore be pulled out.

Tasnima Uddin is a legal aid paralegal. She is a co-founder of Nijjor Manush, a UK campaigning group leading the Save Brick Lane campaign, and the Nejma Collective, a group working in solidarity with incarcerated Muslims in UK prisons.

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