French 'Terrorist' - "he's not my boyfriend"

[AbeSaidYes]

I wondered how other people were feeling about Hasna Aitboulahcen, the woman who was wearing a suicide vest in the recent Paris Siege?

I have just seen that she had shouted 'he's not my boyfriend' in response to the security forces and also I have read that she called 'help me' before the bomb went off.

It seems to me that there is every chance she was an unwilling victim of this atrocity - does anyone else feel the same? it just doesn't sit right with me.

Apologists, just because she was a woman doesn't make her good. Feminism will never be taken seriously if we insist on defending evil people because of their gender.

I don't really understand this thread.

Other than the 'help me' (which, it has been explained, could be a tactic or could be genuine) why is there any reason to think this person was a victim as opposed to anyone else in the flat or any of the other people killed in explosions (presumably all the gunmen were clearly active participants)?

She may have been a victim, but why pick her to speculate about?

Why speculate at all?

(As for why the police initially thought she had detonated a vest. If the reports are correct that her head was found outside, that may well be the reason).

Playswellwithothers
The success of terrorism depends on a conspiracy of silence and cooperation from many people and this will inevitably mean women as well as men are complicit in this terror. Perhaps this woman was innocent. Many others aren't.
In this particular case the French authorities don't know what happened but when they realised who the ringleader was they found that this woman led them to him.
I've previously posted about innocents )including children) being used as 'suicide bombers' and of course that means they can be detonated remotely. We all know this happens and I can see that taken in isolation my comment seems to contradict this but as I've said, I was talking about this particular incident.

But the gender is important when it comes to the way people are treated by the press specifically because of their gender. She is given extra attention because she is a woman, she is promoted to higher headline status than all the other terrorists and atrocities because she is a woman.

Apart from that it wasn't 'just' because she was a woman that I asked the question but because she was a woman calling for help who may not have done the things the papers were saying she had.

If I was into defending every woman based purely on their gender I'd be starting a thread saying so every day about every single woman involved in an atrocious act but I am not.

You asked me, pirate, 'who do you ink detonated the suicide vest?'

Who did you think it was and why?

Given that the French authorities don't know I hardly think I would.
The question was somewhat rhetorical...

she was a woman calling for help who may not have done the things the papers were saying she had.

Again, other than calling for help, what reason was there to think she 'may not have done the things the papers were saying she had' any more than the many basically nameless men who blew themselves up.

The question of why the papers (especially the likes of the Mail) and the press more widely focus on the woman. Yes, that's a good and valid one. But I don't understand why it should be tied in with speculation she was a victim.

If it turns out she was a victim, that's awful. But why speculate on her

In what way could she be a victim then? And why not speculate on her?

She was the one shouting help me. She just happens to be she.

But the 'help me' thing has been explained.

Has it been reported what any of the men who blew themselves up said?

As for why not speculate - because, in time, the truth will hopefully come out about all of these people and what the police know about them. But I think it's really odd and slightly distasteful to latch onto one person using a known technique to lure police closer and speculate she was a victim.

Until we know otherwise, it does rather smack of the flip side of the weird press obsession with female violence - the idea that we need to closely analyse the one publicised woman in case she was a victim.

The help me thing has been explained?

I beloeve it has been theorised upon but ... Explained?

My original posts do make it clear that there were many issues that made it not sit right with me ad I did post this after hearing that another body had been found. Of course I didn't know anything about that person but it was a possibility in my mind that they had been wearing the vest or that someone else had set the vest off.

"Has it been reported what any of the men who blew themselves up said"

Well, no. And herein lies the problem.

If they said anything, why wasn't it reported? Could it be because

A. The media is not interested in anything they had to say because, well, what's more exciting than Europe's 'first ever female suicide bomber'.

B. They said nothing. Was it because they didn't feel and fear or need to shout 'help me, I am on fire'

Who really knows. All I know is that as soon as a possible woman suicide vest terrorist seemed like a possibility a large part of the media zoomed in their focus onto that fact.

Sorry if I was unclear. I was paraphrasing what I said in an earlier post when I said 'explained' the second time - explained as having two possible meanings (genuine cry for help or intentional tactic).

I don't think the assumption by the OP was that she was necessarily a victim simply because she was a woman but that she might be because of the combination of her last words and the fact that women tend not to be suicide bombers of their own free will.

I think it's entirely ok to examine that from a feminist perspective.

I think the idea that she was calling 'help me' to lure people upstairs may be a bit disingenuous. From the helpful illustrations provided in the tabloids, there were police outside, and police in the building, loads of them. Isn't it more likely she'd be calling for help because she actually wanted help? The radicalized don't tend to call for help, they're looking forward to 'martyring' themselves.

Why theorise over the men, that's not in keeping with the topic being discussed.

But obviously it's ok to speculate how she got into 'terrorism', how she 'lured' the police, when luring is an obvious tactic to use to blow up the enemy using vulnerable people, whose 'vests' are detonated remotely. Despicable tactics are used by terrorists, almost always men.

Men do the beheadings.

Who really knows. All I know is that as soon as a possible woman suicide vest terrorist seemed like a possibility a large part of the media zoomed in their focus onto that fact.

Yes indeed they did. And I've said that that's wrong. But it's also not a reason to start speculating on innocence or being a victim.

In fact, that's playing into the flip side of the ridiculous media motif of female suicide bomber. You don't think it's part of the exact same problem: media get all excited about a female bomber matched with "ooh, this person given all the attention is a woman, maybe she was a victim.

As an aside, the BBC is reporting a French source as saying the police had reason to believe 'help me' was a deliberate tactic. So I guess we'll hear more on that bit in future.

But obviously it's ok to speculate how she got into 'terrorism', how she 'lured' the police, when luring is an obvious tactic to use to blow up the enemy using vulnerable people, whose 'vests' are detonated remotely.

I'm not sure if that is directed at me, but I'm saying the opposite of that. I'm saying how about we leave it all well alone until we get a full picture of what went on, instead of deciding to personally analyse whether the person was guilty or not.

You don't think it's part of the exact same problem: media get all excited about a female bomber matched with "ooh, this person given all the attention is a woman, maybe she was a victim

No, the first demonstrates the inequality in the media that bad acts by a women are reported as somehow being even less moral than bad acts by a man.

The second is about showing compassion and understanding for a woman who may have been murdered in an incredibly brutal fashion by a man known to her. Given the scale of violence against women and the tendency for women not to be willing suicide bombers, why isn't the default position that she was more likely to have been a victim ? Why isn't she given the benefit of the doubt given that there is more chance statistically that she was a victim rather than a perpetrator ?

Sorry Blistory, that was to Libraries.

There's lots of evidence of women being willing participants in suicide bombings though blistory That doesn't negate the horror of the unwilling victims but it's a fact.

But I think it's really odd and slightly distasteful to latch onto one person using a known technique to lure police closer and speculate she was a victim.

Completely agree

May have been murdered?

Yes , may have been. Based on one shouted phrase and a statistical analysis (which tells you a lot about a population but nothing meaningful about a single person ).

The idea that you should start from a presumption of innocence here for just women (and by implication an assumption of guilt for the men) is one I can't get on board with.

I didn't read op as starting from a presumption of innocence. I read it as questioning why the media had presumed guilt when there were things (the asking for help) to suggest the opposite is a possibility.

Countess - sorry, that was directed to Blistory and her direct question why we don't do that in our discourse.