ABSTRACT
Amira 1 is a 16 year old schoolgirl in a small town in the Netherlands. She has lived with her mom and sisters since her parents got divorced. The family has a long history of engagement with child protection services because of repeated domestic violence by the father, often instigated by his alcoholism. Amira’s parents are refugees and her mother is a Muslim. Amira herself is not concerned with Islam. She is a typical teenager. She hangs out with friends and is absorbed with clothes, make-up, boys and social media. That all changes when her mother is diagnosed with cancer and nearly dies. As a divorced refugee, her mother has very little by way of social or family network she can draw on while she is so sick. Word goes round in the local Muslim community and young women with a Salafi religious orientation start helping out. They also start speaking with Amira, observing that she is not behaving like a ‘true’ Muslim. For example, she does not wear a head scarf. These women introduce her to books, websites and lectures so she can learn more about Islam and how she should behave and act as a ‘true’ Muslim. After the summer holiday Amira makes a radical decision. She decides to swap her skinny jeans for a khimar; she is completely veiled in black, with the exception of her eyes, nose and mouth. This choice generates a lot of resistance, both at school and in town. She is nearly run over by a driver who shouts ‘terrorists’ at her; and her maths teacher dedicates his lessons to her new choice of clothing, continually asking her if she is going to Syria (to join ISIS). At that point ‘going to Syria’ is not on her radar at all, but her new clothing and religious quest is attracting attention on social media. Amira even receives a marriage proposal from a ‘mujahid’ (a fighter in Syria). It turns out that an old friend of one of her sisters has already travelled to Syria. She becomes more and more engaged in the extremist network, both via social media as well as via other women she knows locally. She becomes part of a pro-ISIS What’s App group in which members share thoughts about western ‘hypocrites’ and ‘hijra’, their Islamic duty to migrate to an Islamic country, the so-called caliphate. Joining this group gives Amira a sense of belonging and recognition: at least she is not the only one who feels discriminated and feels she might be better off in the caliphate. Through a network in Syria, Belgium and the Netherlands, money is transferred into her account, and the following week she decides to travel to ISIS, but gets stopped at the Turkish border.
