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“White Widows” – The New Face of Terrorism?
Terrorism has a new face, a female face, the one of Samantha Lewthwaite who after the Kenyan mall attack has become the number one international threat.
When Al-Shabbab militants stormed the stores at Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya over 67 people were killed. Over the four-day outrage, people from all walks of life were chosen as victims to this sudden and shocking attack.
We all know well that terrorist attacks are rarely announced before hand; this is not what surprised the audience, but rather the connection made between west and east. In particular, what perplexed many was the potential role played by Samantha Lewthwaite.
As blue-eyed Caucasian woman wearing a full-length black burka was out of the «norm.» Unfortunately perhaps we have grown used to identifying certain traits, behaviour, nationalities and creeds to terrorism. Islam has been at the core of the argument as much as the odd case of the “White Widow”, now hunted down by Interpol.
At 15, Samantha Lewthwaite fell in love with a Muslim boy. Apparently other than her parents divorce, Samantha grew up in what could only be described as a normal background, without further motive to her potential outburst a few weeks ago. This however is not the only case of a convert radicalising and undergoing utter changes. A white Belgian convert, Muriel Degauque, perpetrated a suicide attack in Iraq in 2005. Then came Colleen LaRose, aka jihad Jane, a white American convert who, in 2011, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder the Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks for his depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. LaRose had a traumatic childhood and fell into prostitution and drugs. Like many religious converts past and present, her conversion was precipitated by a crisis that acted as a catalyst for change. The teenage Lewthwaite was apparently traumatised by her parents’ divorce, but it is the very normality of her background that provokes, disturbs and fascinates.
Widow of 7/7 attacker Germaine Lindsay and mother of four, this Young woman and the concept of her being the mastermind behind the Nairobi shopping centre massacre is something many cannot wrap around their heads.
Despite Britain appearing to be multicultural and home to a multitude of ethnicities, the marriage between Islam and western culture has not always sat well with the majority of the population. In the 1890s, one of the first known female British converts, Frances Fatima Cates of Liverpool, was abused by her family (who threatened to burn her copy of the Qur’an) and attacked by strangers in the street – horse manure was rubbed into her face as she left the local mosque. Today, converts who are female Muslim experience what we now know as Islamophobia – at home, in the workplace and, still, on the street. With a rise of terrorists attacks on western major cities like Madrid, London and of course, New York; Islamophobia has become a sensitive subject.
The fact this sweet young English girl converted to Islam has given the press enough fodder to publish countless articles on the possible psychology behind such actions. However, another potential reason behind this outrage is the mere fact that she’s a woman. Not looking to sound too much like a feminist, but undoubtedly it is a role that is not usually taken up by women. Yet there have been several cases where the so-called “Most Wanted” have been ladies. Just looking back in history we find Mata Hari, something out of a Bond film, this possible double agent fooled more than one man during her time as an exotic dancer in bohemian Paris. It is also the case of Sandra Avila Beltran known to seal the deal for possibly some of the most powerful drug lords she was known as “The Queen of the Pacific”, as well as Lucrezia Borgia famous for carrying poison in her ring to rid herself of any potential rivals who would avoid her reaching a higher social status.
It might be a curious case of Stockholm syndrome, where after being surrounded by people who believe in a certain ideology, they become brainwashed. It might, however, not be. It’s difficult to say what the case may be. But “widow terrorism” is not a new trend.
Made famous in the 2002 Moscow Nord-Ost theatre, “Black Widows” were Chechen suicide women also known as Shadika who attacked territories oppressed under Russian control. Many were motivated by their husband’s death in earlier attacks. Chechen terrorist leaders were so impressed that prefer female bombers to their male counterparts.
The White Widow is only the latest in a phenomenon of growing female acts of terrorism. What strategies can we put into place to ameliorate this? Certainly decreasing collateral damage in warzones and in battles with terrorists would help, but for now we have yet to find the right recipe to delete male terrorists, that doing so with the opposite sex does not seem like an easier task.
Marina San Miguel