“Shamima Begum should not be banished – banishing people belongs in the dark ages, not 21st-century Britain,” complains a person who thinks keeping Begum – a veteran ISIS member – out of England is a bad idea. But the British courts have now ruled unanimously that she can’t come back; she has a right to Bangladeshi citizenship, they point out, and should go and claim it. That ain’t banishment.

And anyway – England’s full of sharia law councils, and their decisions are way dark ages — at least for women! The more power England gives sharia courts, the darker the ages right in your own home town, hon. So no lecturing us about 21st-century Britain. To be sure, we ain’t in the ninth century – the century in which Begum opted to live – but, as the Council of Europe notes, we’re definitely backsliding.

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UPDATE: And here’s how not to argue that Begum belongs back in England. Let’s take a close look at Aina Khan’s argument.

Headline: Shamima Begum is a product of Britain. She should face justice here.

What’s the logic of this? In an ecstasy of violence Begum repudiated England and joined the Islamic State. Just because the origins she rejected were British, she has to be tried in Britain? No. No reasonable trial can in any case be conducted, since no records exist of her activities in ISIS territory.

She’s a victim of child grooming by a death cult. And her banishment tells all ethnic minorities that they’re not seen as fully British.

Who says? Pure speculation, the bit about grooming. I mean, so she was a teenager. That doesn’t mean she was, in Khan’s word, “naive.” Richard Loeb was 18 when he murdered Bobby Franks. He wasn’t treated like a naive victim of grooming. The bit about her fate sealing the dire fate of all ethnic minorities in famously tolerant Britain is just bullshit. Fear mongering.

Khan says the public was “dismayed” when in an interview Begum boasted of feeling nothing when she saw severed heads. Let’s look at some sentences from the Cambridge Dictionary which use the word dismay.

She discovered, to her dismay, that she had locked her keys inside her car.

They enjoyed the meal but were dismayed by how much it cost.

She discovered, to her dismay, that her exam was a whole month earlier than she’d expected.

We discovered, to our dismay, that the ISIS member was fine with severed heads.

Last one doesn’t quite work, does it? Not quite strong enough.

[W]e need to know why a straight-A teenager from east London would willingly leave Britain to embrace a death cult.

Richard Loeb was a brilliant, straight-A teenager at the University of Chicago. Like straight-A Shamima, he felt great curiosity about/attraction to sadistically killing people. Smart doesn’t necessarily make you a good person, does it? Is it possible Aina Khan doesn’t know this? Is it also possible she’s unaware of the contradiction involved in arguing that Begum was super-smart and au même moment so sub-basement stupid as to find an ISIS come-on irresistibly seductive? Weawy?

The rest of her opinion piece is more insistence that the Begum precedent means that if Khan, as a minority, jaywalks, she could be sent back to the country where her grandparents were born. Gevalt.

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It gets worse. At least Khan bothers arguing her case. This dude doesn’t even try. Way to come across like a scolding, arrogant, elitist.