9/11, a quarter century on

It was an awful event at the time, and it has become clear since that 9/11 acts as some kind of dividing line between one era and the next. It's 25 years later and it feels like it's as hard as ever to navigate the aftermath.

I have been blogging long enough that my first post about 9/11 was 20 years ago, on the 5 year anniversary. I visited Ground Zero in 2007. And in 2009 I blogged about the conspiracy theories that had grown about it. 

A few nights ago I was talking politics with a friend and we reminisced about how optimistic things seemed in the late 90s when "New Labour" were elected. The stale Conservative government was swept away in a landslide led by Tony Blair. A few months prior to 9/11 and Labour had been re-elected for a new term in government. 

9/11 derailed that optimism. It blew the lid off New Labour when, a year later, the UK joined in the invasion of Iraq. That was followed by joining in the military operation in Afghanistan. It all got very messy and it feels like the ultimate outcome hasn't helped make the world much safer.

I'm now so old, I can read posts on Reddit from grown adults asking what it was like to see the Twin Towers fall, in the same way I would ask my parents about Martin Luther King or Beatlemania. Anything that happened before you were born lives in the realm of myth and make believe. But it's a small shock when you realise your own history is now pre-history for a great wodge of the population. 

The sad thing about those posts, and the replies that they elicit, is the sense of what we have lost. A feeling of hopeful change and progress got buried in the rubble of the World Trade Centre. Our governments defaulted to war mode. Culturally we embraced a threat mindset, which we are seeing now in extremis in rhetoric about being invaded. Conspiracism has thrived and mistrust is common currency.

That fear burden is one of the legacies of 9/11; the impact of terrorism is to spread terror. And it has been very effective. So many people seem perma-scared now, often of things that, rationally, have zero impact on them. 

Somehow, we need to find a way to mourn the losses of 9/11, without letting terror dominate our lives. 

Book of the Month: Fundamentally

This review contains spoilers. 

Non-spoiler summary - this is a fictionalised account of trying to deradicalise women who were tricked and trafficked into becoming brides for fighters in ISIS. It is very well written, told from the perspective of a female British academic who has traded academia to work on the deradicalisation programme for the United Nations. She meets a young woman from London who is now in a camp for former ISIS brides in Iraq. The story explores their tentative friendship during the labyrinthine process of leaving the camp and returning to the UK.

It's a very moving, witty, challenging and memorable book and I thoroughly recommend it.

++++++ Spoilers follow ++++++

This is a work of fiction that has such a ring of authenticity about it that the author, Nussaibah Younis, has added in a disclaimer at the back to say that no, she did not work for the United Nations when she worked in Iraq, and no, there are no internment camps for women who were trafficked into forced marriages to ISIS members in Iraq. Although similar camps do exist in other countries, and women have been left trapped, imprisoned and stateless after being deprived of their home citizenship.

However, Nussaibah did work in Iraq for a NGO and was advising the Iraqi government on how to deradicalise women who had joined, or were coerced into joining, ISIS. She is also a British academic who grew up in the UK, like Nadia the primary protagonist in the book. Whether there are any other similarities between her and Nadia would be an intensely personal question to ask, given Nadia's sexual experiences and her apostasy.

The different relationship Nadia and Sara, the other main character in the book, have with the religion they were brought up in was another very authentic element to the book. Nadia meets Sara in the camp where women who were married to ISIS fighters are being held. After a while it becomes apparent that Nadia's rebellion against the strictures of her religion left her open to her naivety being exploited in almost exactly the same way that Sara's idealism and wanting a more fervent version of her faith led to her being trafficked into a life of sexual slavery. 

Nadia's journey from a teenage true believer through to an apostate adult is an interesting look at natural deradicalisation. What is equally interesting is the way Sarah clings to her faith, despite being repeatedly married off to short-lived ISIS cannon fodder soldiers. She doesn't lose her faith despite the personal atrocities she experiences and resists the deradicalisation programme. She still wants the dream she had of a religious utopia to be possible, despite the reality she found herself in, and she doesn't want to let that dream go. 

The book's setting in the world of the UN also, sadly, feels very true. Nadia has to deal with competing internal political priorities. Some of the tangential storylines and prejudices expressed by the motley cast of supporting characters seem to be drawn from real life, even if the hypocrisy and corruption are dialled up to eleven. There are arguments between empire-building heads of department as they struggle for greater personal control of resources. The people needing help are the lowest priority of jaded career UN workers, many of whom seem to have ended up in Iraq by accident and are just serving their time until they can take another placement somewhere else. 

Meanwhile, we have Sarah and Nadia, slowly becoming friends despite everything. When it becomes apparent that Sarah will never be repatriated to Britain, and also apparent that she probably doesn't want to go back, they have to find an alternative place of safety. It all gets very messy and tense towards the end of the book, which kept me gripped until I had finished the story. 

This is my favourite fiction book so far this year and probably since I read Jennie Godfrey's The List of Suspicious Things last summer. It has a lot to say about religion, global geopolitics, fixing the problems of failed states, and human connection. It is profoundly hopeful, despite the many reasons the characters have to despair. And that, I think, is its most endearing quality. 

Given enough rope...

Scott Adams has been stung by criticism ever since he blogged about Saddam Hussein being hanged. But then calling your post ‘Good Noose from Iraq’, while clever, is likely to attract complaints.

Having said that, NewsBiscuit’s reportage of the ‘outrage’ felt by many Western politicians is equally offensively clever. And it made me laugh like the proverbial drain. Particularly the bit about how the stakes have been upped for 'happy slappers'.