Tooba Gondal: the British woman who recruited women for Isis
ISIS peaked in 2015-16, but its recruitment in Western societies grew from conditions that have not changed. They include sexism, and moral emptiness. Where politics is moribund, the simplicity of religious fundamentalism offers a solution, including to middle-class Muslim women whose lives are not colonised by exploitative and alienating work but still experience sexist abuse.
Racism, sexism and Islamophobia simmer below the surface in British society, and despite a comfortable life in London and other European countries many young women from Muslim and non-Muslim families were attracted to the social media propaganda of ISIS. Shamima Begum is the best-known in Britain because she has not been allowed to return to the UK from Syria, despite holding British nationality. Less known is Tooba Gondal, who, through her Twitter account, recruited women in Europe, including Shamima Begum, for ISIS militants in Syria.
Benedetta Argentieri is a journalist with 20 years experience, and more recently a filmmaker. She started working in Iraq and Syria from 2014, a very difficult time, especially for women journalists. She has made several films about the situation of women in western Asia, and in her latest "The matchmaker" she challenges the simplistic media narrative portraying women as either easily manipulated victims or crazy fanatics.
"Travelling there I saw that women were resisting this, and I wanted to show the different ways they succeeded. "70% of women worldwide have experienced male violence, and we need to ask what is wrong with Western society that made young women angry enough to go to Syria".
I interviewed Benedetta for The Prisma after "The matchmaker" was shown at the Olhares do Mediterraneo Women's film festival in Lisbon.
The interview was first published in The Prisma Multicultural Newspaper in Dec. 2023, and can be read there with links and accompanying images, here: https://theprisma.co.uk/2023/12/04/tooba-gondal-the-british-woman-who-recruited-women-for-isis/