The truth behind Europe’s “first female suicide bomber”

Brut America

Hasna Ait Boulahcen was wrongly called Europe’s first female suicide bomber by the media.   Now, journalist-turned-filmmaker Dina Amer wants to show the complex story behind the headlines in her new movie, You Resemble Me.

Transcript

00:00She didn't come out of the womb wanting to kill people.

00:08French authorities say detonating that bomb,

00:1026-year-old Hasna Aitmoula Sen,

00:13who became Europe's first female suicide bomber.

00:16Learning a lot more about this female suicide bomber,

00:18the first in Europe.

00:20A woman who has been dehumanized by the news.

00:30A woman who has been dismissed as a monster.

00:45Hasna was a girl who wanted to be seen.

00:48In France, there is this pressure to integrate

00:51when you come from an immigrant background,

00:53especially a Muslim one,

00:55and to not eat halal and to not wear the veil.

00:57Not being able to exist on your own terms as a Muslim woman

01:01causes some sort of schizophrenia of self.

01:04She's trying to be at once modern

01:07and also have a connection to the Middle East and to Islam.

01:12There's a cost to not being able to exist on your own terms.

01:18Her struggle to do so is really what makes her vulnerable,

01:21susceptible to brainwashing.

01:23She radicalized in less than 10 months,

01:25eventually joining a group like ISIS.

01:27That doesn't happen in a vacuum.

01:29I think that everyone is to blame.

01:43This video capturing the flames and debris

01:46bursting from the building as she detonated her suicide gust.

02:13Where she was on a balcony screaming for dear life,

02:15wanting to be let out, wanting to jump.

02:28They painted this picture of her being a very promiscuous,

02:33wild club girl who then wore the niqab and joined ISIS.

02:39How she went from the miniskirt to the niqab was one of the headlines.

02:42That would have never happened to a man.

02:52It was because she was a woman that it became so sensationalized.

02:55This woman who has been dehumanized by the news,

02:58who we haven't been allowed to experience her full humanity.

03:02She's just like every other woman,

03:05seeking love and belonging and consideration.

03:09She's just like every other woman,

03:11seeking love and belonging and consideration.

03:16I was actually at the scene in San Denis shortly after the bomb went off.

03:23And I felt so guilty that I had contributed to a fake news cycle

03:27that I went and I found her family.

03:29And her mother had turned away every single news camera or filmmaker

03:33who was interested in her daughter's story, except for me.

03:36And it was only because she felt like I resembled her daughter.

03:47It's a radical act to bring Hasna, a woman who is demonizing and called a monster,

03:52a woman who is brown and Muslim and Arab,

03:55and to allow her to live through a fictional depiction, which was complex.

04:00Hollywood affords that complexity to so many white men.

04:04There's a white shooter.

04:06The news goes into, well, they're a lone wolf,

04:09or let's talk about their childhood.

04:11But when it's a person of color, the whole community suffers that judgment.

04:17Treating this for what it is, it's a lone wolf terrorist attack.

04:20I think the mission of the film is to put you in the shoes and the skin and the heartbeat.

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