The State

Okay perhaps something of a wake-up call is needed for the people who wrote the scathing entirely undeserved one-star reviews of this show, out of, it would seem, hatred for any attempt to show sympathy for the characters portrayed here - I will take something of a more pragmatic approach to the material.

Jumping straight in at the deep end 'The State' introduces us to four young characters as they travel from the west to Syria, each with their own delusions about what it will mean to join Islamic State and build the new state of Syria. There's young Doctor and single Mother, Shakira (Ony Uhiara - brilliant) Jalal (Sam Otto - outstanding) whose brother joined prior to him and was killed in action, who wants to fight the enemy along with his childhood friend Ziyaad (Ryan McKen) and finally Ushna (an excellent debut from Shavani Cameron)who hopes to be a 'lioness among lions' but still hates to use a shared toilet. So it is on the front lines of the fighting in Syria that these four characters find themselves. The women are taken to the female compound run by the pious hands of westerner Umm Walid (Jessica Gunning, suitably patronising in the role) While the men are trained to kill and assigned combat duty, meeting other westerners who have come to join the fight. So it is that we follow the course of their lives and the people they meet over a few short weeks.

I find comments elsewhere about this shows attempts to sympathise with these young people rather vacuous and missing the point of the show entirely - There is little sympathy to be found for our leading protagonists here. We do not, for one thing, know why they came to join with perhaps the exception of Jalal. An advert for recruitment to ISIS, this show IS NOT. The threat of rape for the female characters is constant throughout the story while the men are sent into near suicide combat missions, being told a glorious death awaits them. This is a story about four people who were naively drawn into a cause, the reality of which they didn't fully comprehend until they were standing in the middle of it. Where the show is it's strongest is with the Shakira / Jalal story lines and this is as much down to the performance by the actors, as it is about the script. Casting Director Nina Gold has assembled an impressive and convincing cast here, with the stand out performance being that of Sam Otto. His inner conflict and doubt is precisely stated with just the odd look and glance, while Ony Uhiara, as the Doctor who finds she is increasingly marginalised realises her son is being turned into a killer before her very eyes, plays her growing doubt with great conviction. Special mention here must also go to child actor Nana Agyeman-Bediako who is fantastic as her son. A number of the supporting cast are extremely good as well, having cast a number of people who speak perfect Arabic. Karim Kassem is especially good as the local ISIS leader, who haunts Shakira's every move while Jack Greenless stands out as an ex-western soldier in a very under written role. Haaz Sleiman, Fayez Bakhsh and Hiam Abbass all make their mark in the story and deserve a mention.

What 'The State' does, is Humanise the characters it portrays. We can probably all remember a time once where some of us were naively influenced by a political movement at the time, be that CND or protesting against perfume being used on monkeys. This is a story about that time in our youth, where we were impressionable, we could make a mistake and suddenly we find ourselves growing up very fast. The experience these people went through felt authentic and that is important because nothing shown here would in my view ever encourage a person to take the same journey. Schools would do well to show this series to their students.

For me, there was one thing that was missing from the show. I felt it would have benefited from another episode prior to episode one which demonstrated how each person was drawn into this cause. The producers felt it was enough to show that they are, which is, of course, the reality but f we don't understand what draws people to a cause like this, how are we ever going to understand it?

An excellent series that shows a good preliminary work of investigation in order to make it as realistic as possible. It is neither by far nor by near, an apology for Islamic radicalism and violence; show only a naked reality that, whether we like it or not, exists and which is not worth ignoring. The most attentive viewer will find during the 04 episodes not only the large references associated with ISIS (free and medieval violence, religion, the situation of women, accepted and justified slavery, but also small references to the bombing of civilian targets, former officers of Saddam who, by being ostracized and persecuted in the Iraq, formed the backbone of senior officers who allowed ISIS to have some success at the beginning of the expansion of the Califado, as well as the relevant issue of advertising and its dissemination in social networks. To see without reservations ...

Those who low rated this TV series and called it preposterous, alleging that intelligent people who have heard about ISIS crimes via the media would not naively go to Syria to join the Jihad, completely missed the point, which is that people believe what they want to believe and shut out anything which does not fit their belief. If this was not so, there would be no major religions and no one would smoke cigarettes or drive drunk.

Who in their right mind would believe in a heaven somewhere up in the clouds with pearly gates guarded by golden haired angels, or that a destructive evil named Satan ruled over an everlasting fiery pit. There are those in the Southern US who firmly believe that the Bible was written in English by Jesus Christ, and that Jesus was a blue eyed Anglo Saxon. If people can believe that the world was created in six days 6,000 years ago, that a savior was born to a virgin and after his death he rose again for 40 days, despite all the evidence to the contrary, they will believe anything.

Many otherwise intelligent people firmly believe in the lost continent of Atlantis, others that all the ancient ruins such as the pyramids and the temples of Central America were built by aliens as if ancient humans were not able to work things out for themselves. It is the same with those who run off to join the Jihad. Some are impressionable youths, but as in the case of Shakira, others might actually believe they are going to do good. They have closed their minds to whatever challenges their belief or brainwashing. Just as we had fanatical religious martyrs in the past dying for their faith, we now have martyrs dying for the Islamic faith. The fanatical Christians were created saints and venerated for their beliefs, so were hermits, monks and nuns who lived in severe hardship and discomfort and spent their days praying.

I did find some of the characters acted stupidly, but had they not been a little on the naive side they would never have gone to Syria in the first place. I certainly did not find the series a recruitment tool for ISIS as some viewers and reviewers seemed to. More like Reefer Madness being a considered a deterrent for marijuana use.

The premise is simple so I will skip that. The Muslim Jihad is a call to arms for all Muslims regardless of one's life in the false world. Those who have been called are fed propaganda by the previous waves of fighters who answered the call to jihad.

We learn that each person truly wants and believes in their faith. They each want to believe in the struggle and participate in their own way. We also learn that the Mujahadeen or soldiers know this is a losing battle. For them it is a path to shaheed or martyrdom. This is the ultimate gift from God.

But what each person thought they were seeking in their faith or even their own personal lives cannot be had in the caliphe or Islamic State. Each person has a different challenge that defies the teachings of the hadith or prophet.

They each learn that it isn't the lies but the truth that scares them.

I am amazed at the scathing reviews of 'The State'.

Trust me, as a man who has been on the front lines against daesh in Iraq, this is worth the watch. I think this show did an amazing job of showing the realities of living under a daesh state of power. All while doing it without crossing the line and keeping it clean enough for a younger audience. As someone who has actually been there, it is mind-blowing to me that this show is portrayed by other reviewers as wishing to be sympathetic to the recruits. It shows the brutal reality which those in areas under daesh rule face.

This show does an amazing job of captivating while educating on the beliefs of daesh and their twisted views of Islam. I am very disappointed in seeing how the masses received this show and hope it doesn't lead to Nat Geo closing the books permanently on the mini-series.