On his Twitter profile photo, the Matterhorn, Switzerland’s most emblematic mountain, covered with the American flag appears in front of a starry sky. On Instagram, Noor Bin Ladin, 33, poses in front of Lake Geneva in a navy blue tracksuit and red cap, both branded with the famous Trumpist slogan, Make America Great Again. From a Swiss mother and a Saudi father, this niece of Bin Laden who, unlike her two sisters, has never lived in Saudi Arabia, herself recognizes that her support for Trump as well as her Americanophilia can come as a surprise.
His father Yeslam, half-brother of Osama bin Laden, bears the name “The most controversial of the XXIe century “, she writes. Nevertheless: Noor Bin Ladin – she is attached to this spelling, adopted by her branch of the family – has always been fascinated by the United States. Maybe because it was during their studies at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, that his parents had their best years as a couple? Before their divorce entered the annals of Geneva: the procedure, spread over a decade, was one of the longest in the canton.
Traumatized by the 2001 terrorist attacks
In his Memoirs, Inside the Kingdom, My Life in Saudi Arabia, which became a bestseller in France and the United States after their release in 2004, her mother, Carmen Bin Ladin, née Dufour, remembers Noor bringing back from a trip to South Carolina an American flag which she then carried stuck to the wall of his room. Mother and daughter visit the country several times a year… until September 11, 2001. Noor is still a high school student. That day, Carmen remembers finding her in shock when she left school. “New York will never be the same again”, said his youngest daughter.
Like everyone else, they go home to watch CNN. But unlike everyone else, when Osama Bin Laden’s name begins to circulate, their life takes another turn. The eldest, Wafah, now a musician in an indie band in London’s Hackney district, was unable to return to New York, where she then resided. Threatened with death, and wrongly accused of having been warned before the attacks, she was then pursued by reporters in her new adopted city, London, where her career in music was largely affected by her name of family. In her book, their mother Carmen writes: “We were the only Bin Ladin in Europe whose phone number was in the Directory. ”
Open letter to the United States
Hitherto discreet, Noor Bin Ladin has been giving voice to support Donald Trump since this summer. A position that surprises in Geneva, where she grew up and lives. A 2018 poll found that only 18% of Swiss people had a favorable opinion of Trump. While wearing her Trumpist outfit, the thirty-something was recently arrested in the street by a lady in her fifties. “I kept my calm, she says in an interview given in early September in New York Post, a conservative tabloid. And needless to say, I also kept my cap! “
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