“The consequences of your actions”: political apology and the “mommy myth” as discursive punishment in the Shamima Begum case

Shamima Begum – one of three schoolgirls who traveled to Syria to join Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2015 – has been the subject of many intersectional analyses that have highlighted the gendered, racist, and neo-Orientalist frames that have been deployed in relation to her story. What has been unraveled, so far, is the positioning of Begum within a narrative that has functioned to strip her of political agency. Building on this literature, I seek to take this examination of Begum’s case further and argue that this gendered treatment has also functioned to punish her. This article traces two specific discourses through which this punishment has been operationalized. First, the insistence on a political apology from Begum for the crimes of ISIS has positioned her as a proxy for the terrorist organization. These apologies, which are doomed to be rejected, have left Begum as culpable for the atrocities of ISIS. Second, I argue that the discourse of the “mommy myth” has been weaponized to further seal Begum’s punishment. Thus, this article shows that even though her political agency has been erased, Begum has still been firmly cast as a threat via this legitimation of punishment – the strength of which has, ultimately, rendered her stateless.