The Precarity and Predatory Behaviour of the “Mediahideen” in Fatima Bhutto’s Isis Novel The Runaways

In this chapter, I scrutinize The Runaways (2019), written by Fatima Bhutto, who is one of the most accomplished authors to examine resistance’s malleability and reinvention in a digital age. In her polyvocal novel The Runaways she makes searing comments on identity politics, radicalization, and social media. Bhutto also presents her readers with a dizzying array of media, and in this regard we will think about the Pakistani author’s depictions of the online realm as well as conventional media outputs. I will consider whether Bhutto evinces techno-o ptimism or techno-pessimism when it comes to her portrayal of our digital present and future. I also explore her depiction of the glamour of globalized radicalism online, which eventually contributes to her three precarious runaway protagonists—Monty, Layla, and Sunny—joining a fictionalized ISIS called the Ummah Movement (it is surely no coincidence that the group’s acronym is a resounding ‘Um’). The Ummah Movement proves to be an electronic illusion, what philosopher Jean Baudrillard would call a simulacrum. I train my critical gaze on Sunny in particular, as the young British Muslim’s mental health vulnerability leaves him susceptibility to online radicalization. This bears scrutiny through the tripartite lenses of information precarity, communication precarity, and technological precarity. Ultimately, while Bhutto endorses a fight against ‘oppression and injustice,’ she shows that the jihadists’ resistance is irredeemably corrupted by online posturing and real-world violence, bigotry, and discrimination.