Blog: The missing Syria girls and the importance of 'blame'
In the chaos of Istanbul’s sprawling bus station, the families of three British schoolgirls missing in Syria have had a chance encounter which has brought them to tears.
They have met the middle aged bus worker who held the door open for the youngsters as they went to board their coach to the Syrian border. A month ago, the girls were filmed on CCTV as they entered the terminal, having waited for their bus in the snow for 18 hours.
“We don’t blame you” Halima Khanom, the sobbing sister of missing Kadiza Sultana, tells the shell shocked bus worker.
So who is to blame? Border officials? The police? The girls’ teachers? Their parents? Society?
Previously the families have blamed the school, for failing to alert them to the fact that one of the girls’ classmates ran away to Syria last year. Had they known, they say, they would have been far more aware of the possibility of their children doing the same.
They have blamed the police, for the same reason. And the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has accepted fault by publicly apologising.
But there are many questions for airport and border officials in the UK and Turkey too.
As I travelled through Heathrow with the families of the girls, we were stopped by two Scotland Yard detectives. They stood at the gate questioning many of the passengers on our Istanbul-bound flight about precisely what their plans in Turkey were.
More interviews are now being carried out at airports “following some recent events”, one of the officers told me. It is difficult to imagine how many young girls or boys travelling alone to Turkey would be able to succeed in getting to Syria through such basic observations and interviews.
But last week, one of Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officers responded to criticism of the police, claiming the families of the girls should shoulder more of the responsibility for what happened.
“What is ill-advised is to just blame the police, blame the authorities blame the school, when the absolute prime responsibility for the welfare of children lies with parents” Peter Fahy, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, told The Times newspaper.
The lawyer representing the families believes that Fahy and those that blame the parents have failed to understand the way that youngsters are radicalised by Islamic State and its supporters - in secret and often online - far from the gaze of even the most cautious parents.
Mohammed Akunjee said: “Of course they (the families) feel responsible for their own children, that goes without saying. But the fact is these girls were schoolchildren and much of what took place early took place at school. Police put a cap on information that they and the school were giving back to the parents.”
Halima Khanom sister of Kadiza, says it was, in part, their inability to foresee the radicalisation of the young girls that has prompted the families to make this trip. Although they blame police officers and school teachers primarily, they accept that they should carry some of responsibility for the “unrecognisable” actions of their girls; “I just didn’t know - I didn’t see it.” she said.
“I don’t really recognise my sister, the video and the CCTV that we saw. Because this is just not her and we just want to understand her, you know, to find some answers and get some help.”
This grim case raises important questions for our society. The question of ‘who is to blame?’ in response to a tragic or shocking event like this is often dismissed as a classically British search for a scapegoat.
But we do need to know how this happened - and why it keeps happening - in order to stop the flow of young British citizens. Plenty of accusations have been made. But in the dark world of radicalisation, neither blaming the parents nor blaming the police alone appears to be an adequate explanation for this complex process.?