The Hamburg Cell

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, as photos of the hijackers appeared in every newspaper, on every website, and on every newscast, it was impossible for most of us in the West to build up an image of these men without the blur of confusion, pain and hatred.

It's taken three years, but the UK has just televised a dramatisation of the events leading up to 9/11 from the perpetrators' point of view. At the heart of Ronan Bennett's script are the stories of Ziad Jarrah - a young student born a Muslim but raised Catholic, distracted, shy, torn between flesh (women) and Allah (jihad), and Mohammad Atta - a loner, close to his parents, scornful of the "immorality" of Western society, resolute in his dedication to jihad. It paints a picture of disparate Muslims in Germany whose collective loneliness is assuaged by prayer meetings and stories from Tunisia, Chechnya, Bosnia, Palestine and Kashmir. The story takes them from German student life, to the Afghanistan training camps and on to the Florida flight schools.

To my knowledge, this drama is the first anywhere in the world to attempt to portray the events of 9/11 from the hijackers' perspectives (it is based on court transcripts, investigation files and personal interviews with partners and acquaintances) and it has done so from an admirably level-headed place. We'll never really know what went through the attackers' minds, of course, but at least some creative attempt is being made to understand.

I hope this will be shown in the US soon.

Related links:
+ The Guardian review
+ Edinburgh International Film Festival review
+ 9/11 movie makes Edinburgh debut (BBC)