I spend a lot of time thinking about stories: about what stories we tell and how we tell them: about who tells those stories and to whom, and who gets to frame the narratives.
Earlier this week I attended an excellent workshop as part of the Refugee Week Slow Conference which focused on storytelling ... and identifying and unpacking both the power and the problems of inviting and encouraging asylum seekers and refugees to share the first-hand stories of their lives.
Little of what was said was new to me ... this is, after all, what I try to do and while I'm sure I have made many mistakes along the way, I was reassured that much of what I hold to be important was reflected in the speakers' contributions.
A lot of it was about process and not just product. A lot of it was about ownership and agency.
And a lot of it was about simply creating a space that respects the humanity of each individual. Any of us may sometimes find ourselves speaking as the "representative" of a group or type, but all of us, also want to be heard as speaking simply for ourselves.
Some of that touches on moving away from how migration stories are very often framed: the good immigrant / bad immigrant; worthy / unworthy; legal / illegal narrative. The narrative that starts by suggesting the migrant protagonist of the story must be either victim or villain or hero. A narrative which is unhelpful because most migrants, like most of the rest of us, are none of those, or perhaps a mixture of all of them. Our humanity encompasses our flaws and failings, our suffering and our triumphs.
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In another of my many zoom calls this week, a Lenten liturgy session, we were invited to reflect on forgiveness. Among other things, the person leading commented on the fact that knowing what we do about child development, about the teenage brain, and about everything hormonally, socially, emotionally, that teenagers are going through; they are generally much easier to forgive than adults. She suggested that perhaps we should reflect on how we could learn to offer that same grace that we feel able to give to them to ourselves and one another in adulthood. At least that's my memory or interpretation of it.
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So all of these thoughts, and others, have been floating around my mind this week when today I found myself scrolling through the Stories of Hope and Home twitter feed. It is mainly made up of refugee charities and campaign groups, the odd immigration lawyer, with the occasional faith or arts organisation mixed in for good measure. I am well aware it is an echo chamber which doesn't represent public opinion. For at least some of those I follow, today's hot topic was the supreme court judgement in the latest stage in the Shamima Begum case.
In case you missed it: the edited highlights (as far as my non-legal brain understands them) are that this was not a ruling about whether or not she should have been stripped of her British citizenship but on whether she should be allowed to enter the UK in order to make that appeal. And the upshot is that despite acknowledging that it means she will not be able to have a fair appeal process, that is not sufficient reason for her to be allowed to come to the UK to contest the case. For any more than that, Free Movement offers a much fuller commentary of what it is all about.
To my mind there are a few facts which need to be remembered.
She has Bengali heritage but was born and brought up in the UK and has never lived in Bangladesh, the other country for which she is potentially entitled to citizenship. When she travelled to Syria to join ISIS she was legally a child at just 15 years old. Whether it was her own fault or other wise, she has suffered an extremely traumatic six years including, while still a teenager herself, giving birth to and losing three children.
More than any of that, she is, as should not be forgotten, a human being. This too is a fact.
Alongside the facts there are lots of very, very strong opinions about this case. I know. And plenty of suppositions too.
Perhaps she was a victim, groomed and abused by others who exerted power over a vulnerable young person. Perhaps she was phenomenally stupid, with consequences that turned to be somewhat more far reaching than the phenomenally stupid decisions of lots of other fifteen year olds. Perhaps she actually intentionally and deliberately acted in ways that were very, very wrong and destructive.
Perhaps she is still a risk to national security, and perhaps she isn't. Perhaps she should have to face some kind of justice or accountability for her actions. Perhaps that needs to be in the country where, whatever the circumstances surrounding it, she made the decision to travel to a warzone and join the side we hold to be the enemy.
Perhaps she needs a whole lot of help and support. Perhaps her experiences have given her something she could offer back to others.
Perhaps some mixture of all of the above is true. Perhaps none of it is
Even in the worst case scenario that she is in fact a very unpleasant person who poses some level of risk to the rest of us ...
There are plenty of unpleasant people who I would still argue should have the right to a fair trial; who I would not want to see stripped of the citizenship of the country of their birth; who I think should still have their human rights respected rather than dismissed as secondary considerations.
There are plenty of unpleasant people who can still be forgiven, who still have some hope of redemption.
There are plenty of unpleasant people who are still human.
I wish we as a nation had remembered something of Shamima Begum's humanity before we turned this child into a pariah. Before we decided that someone else was always going to be able to frame the narrative. Before our home secretary, upheld by our highest court, ruled that whoever else is going to be given ownership and agency in telling this story, it won't be her.
(If you want a powerful and coherent explanation of why the removal of anyone's citizenship is problematic: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/17/unbecoming-british-kamila-shamsie-citizens-exile)
