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. 

Is the villain of the Guardians of the Galaxy film a cipher for Islamists?

This post has spoilers

In case you didn’t read my review of 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy was my favourite film for loads of reasons. I liked the characters. The story was fast-paced. It used retro-tastic songs to soundtrack action sequences. There were jokes.

But there is something that has niggled me slightly about it, and that’s the villain of the piece, Ronan the Accuser.

We first meet Ronan undertaking an arcane rite that is sacred to his people. He expands on this when he exposits in front of a captive, who he then kills. He is quickly described as a fanatic who won’t listen to the (presumably democratically elected) leaders of his race, the Kree, and has embarked on a personal mission to wipe out those who do not follow the ancient ways and traditions he has committed himself to.

He is basically a murderer with ambitions of genocide, setting out on a jihad.

Pertinent to that is the way he wear a head-dress that looks like the type traditionally worn in the Middle East.

I'm beginning to suspect that Ronan is a cipher for Islamist jihadis. Fanatics are the new villains in Hollywood – people motivated not by base human emotions like greed or vengeance, or compelled by their political creed to commit atrocities, but people who interpret their religion or tradition as mandating their terrible deeds.

Note that Ronan is not seen as typical member of the Kree. He is not under the control of the Kree government, which is both unable and unwilling to oppose him. This parallels our time where the fundamentalists have struck out on their own terror-strewn path - their interpretation of what 'true faith' looks like - that governments struggle to deal with because arguing over truth in religion is pretty much impossible.

Ronan’s religiously-inspired ruthlessness leads him to issue an order to execute every inhabitant of a prison that he invades with his followers. His aim is to wipe out all the life on Xandar, the home planet of the galactic police force, the Nova Corps. The Xandarians are heretics and blasphemers and must be wiped out.

While Guardians of the Galaxy was written and filmed a while before it was released in the summer, it does seem prescient in the way it parallels the rise of Islamic State, which is basically a rogue warlord engaging in genocide against different ethnic and religious groups. Both IS and Ronan have a scorched earth policy when it comes to destroying the infidel.

Consciously or not, Hollywood and comic books do tend to reflect and give voice to the wider concerns of our culture. At the moment, Western democracy feels threatened and powerless in the face of Islamist terrorism. Star-Lord speaks for us when he says he isn’t going to stand by and let innocent people perish. However, in real life we can’t distract fundamentalists with a dance-off while our genetically modified raccoon buddy removes their source of power.