Australia's "Terrorist Mum" Would Probably Be OK If Her Husband Was Fighting For Assad

Last Saturday, a Brisbane mother, with her four children in tow, was arrested at Sydney airport and later charged under the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978 (“the Act”) with supporting incursions into Syria. News.com.au reported that, “sources have confirmed the mother was allegedly carrying an amount of cash and other supplies — believed to include camouflage gear — on behalf of her husband, who is in Syria.” Other news sites have come right out and said the charge was one of “supporting terrorism”. Considering Australia’s position on Assad’s regime in Syria (the Reserve bank has economic sanctions in place against the country, and Kevin Rudd, as Foreign Minister, said Assad should be put on trial), calling the alleged actions of the Brisbane woman “terrorism” seems a little obtuse. If what is suspected turns out to be true, her husband is a part of a rebel group opposing a regime Australia disapproves of.

The woman's solicitor has said the 29-year old was travelling to meet her husband for a family vacation in Malaysia; that the money was for accommodation; the camouflage gear was just normal clothes; and that after the holiday the reunited family was planning on returning to Australia. She is currently out on bail, and most likely to face trial.

Australians are estimated to make up the largest number of foreign fighters in Syria of any country outside the Middle East. They're fighting, mostly, against a regime that has been condemned by our own Government.

The foreign incursion laws that were used to charge the Brisbane woman are discretionary; the Attorney General has the power to outline which sides of which conflicts are acceptable to fight for. The way the law stands it is easier to defend giving aid to a government army than a rebel group because the Act, according to the Guardian, “provides a defence for people who go to fight on behalf of a nation’s armed forces.” So, Australia’s position on Syria notwithstanding, if the mother of four had been on her way to give camo gear and money to a husband who supported the Assad regime, she might have been on firmer legal ground. In a world filled with conflicts like the complicated civil war in Syria it’s legitimate to ask what kind of factors influence these discretionary powers. Which foreign forces are okay to side with? How are these decisions made? Are the considerations strictly political, or are cultural factors at play?

It is clear that the problem Australia has with those who leave to join Islamic rebels in Syria is not their decision to fight, but their chosen side. Australia is not culturally averse to the idea of providing aid or going to war for foreign armies and militias. Historically, Australian individuals doing so without government authorization has caused little outrage, even when the ideology of the fighting forces they joined were out of step with prevailing national values – as is the case in Syria. The Spanish Civil War saw Australians fight in the International Brigades, organised and recruited by the Communist International movement.

A contemporary instance of Australia being more or less okay with its citizens planning to fight in a foreign force might be the case of those who have left the country to join the Israeli Defence Forces. Like those who have gone to fight in Syria, these individuals seem to be ideologues who are encouraged by youth groups to support their beliefs with direct action. You hear less about the Australians joining the IDF because there are less of them, because the conflicts they’re involved in aren’t as newsworthy, because Israel is an ally, and because Zionist radicalism causes less fear in the West than Islamic radicalism.

But it's not the fighting that the Government is worried about, it’s the return of the alleged fighters that people are worried about.

During a speech in Washington, Attorney General George Brandis said, “Syria has become a matter of homeland security. We're very concerned about Syrian foreign fighters, people who are going into Syria, being recruited by extremists there.” The message being: it doesn’t matter what they do over there so much as what they might do when they get back. This might be a case of mistaking a symptom for a cause. These foreign fighters are not returning radicalized, they’re leaving because they’ve already been radicalized. Fighting with rebel forces puts you on government watch lists, so if the plan was for them to become a terrorist they’re running the likely risk of losing anonymity. And it's pretty hard to be a terrorist with ASIO guys watching you the whole time.

Should we be afraid of the return of Australians who have gone to fight in Syria? Perhaps, but David Malet in his work on Foreign Fighters suggests there’s evidence many Islamic fighters don’t want to come back. They see their land of origin as a lost cause and they prefer to stay in “devastated conflict zones… where cultural and governmental institutions are weak and they stand a greater chance of building a theologically correct society when they have defeated the oppressor.”

Regardless of whether or not they return, what’s the best strategy for dealing with the issue of foreign fighters? After all, they’re leaving this country to aid a foreign rebellion – in their eyes defending people with a shared identity. They are not planning a local insurrection. David Malet goes on to say, “Rather than confronting them in the field or attempting to disrupt their mobilization,” it would be more effective to help them establish an alternate identity here, as citizens of the country in which they live. This is different from traditional calls for cultural assimilation, as it puts the onus on society at large and not on the minorities it sees as a threat. But when Muslims are called terrorists for carrying clothing and money on a plane, it kind of does the opposite.

A woman catching a plane with clothes and money in her bag and her four children at her side has been charged with foreign incursion. The difference between a terrorist and what she stands accused of is complex but worth navigating.

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