Crime and Punishment between Dresden and Texas

There were only a few days between the incident at Fort Hood in Texas and the ruling by a court in Germany which will be released on Wednesday for the killing of the Egyptian doctor Marwa Al-Sherbini. Both issues bring to the fore the issue of Western perceptions of Islam. Despite the huge differences between the two crimes and the differences in time and place, the accusations and reactions to them bring to mind the plot of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” We have had attempts by some anti-Muslim communities in Europe and America to justify the assassination of the Egyptian victim and the search for pretexts and reasons in order to lighten the sentence of the person accused of murder, and coming to the conclusion that the offender was suffering from terrible psychological pressure which led him to commit the crime. Just like the protagonist in Dostoevsky who, after putting up with all of the hardship and hunger, the bitterness and pain which surrounded him, decides to rebel against morality and to fling himself into a misadventure as if to prove, by his crime, his sheer superiority. They argue that, just like the protagonist of Dostoevsky’s novel, the fact that the perpetrator of the crime in Dresden was so isolated from his society and considered crazy for wanting to rid the world of an evil is punishment enough.

Those who have been following the details of the case have discovered that the killer of Marwa Al-Sherbini was not suffering from social pressures nor was he the victim of a terrible life which pushed him to storm the court and kill the Muslim woman wearing a headscarf. It was he who chose Islam as his enemy and his victim as a target without having either as the cause of his suffering. The protagonist in the novel saw that ridding the world of evil was a justification for bloodshed and this motivation was not merely subjective but rather stemmed from the bitter social situation and from others who were suffering. But does this apply to the killer of Marwa Al-Sherbini? The protagonist of the novel had a huge array of feelings, was vulnerable, possessed a great sensitivity, tended to be introverted, socially isolated, didn’t like mixing socially and didn’t have any friends outside of university. His sense of alienation increased to such a level that he began to loath others, even those closest to him. In Dresden, the offender lived a normal life with family and friends with whom he cooperated. In fact, he was his Egyptian victim’s neighbor and clashed and fought with her and sought to kill her for his own sake and not for the sake of the world which was somehow suffering because of the existence of Marwa Al-Sherbini.

It is true that the crime has reflected the frightening influence of Western propaganda, with its advocates of discrimination and hate of Islam, but the ruling which will be issued the day after tomorrow might present a deterrent to those who still hope to excite feelings of hate and terrorism. The issue hinges on the role of the “wise” in the world who must work at all levels in order to ease tension and hatred, not merely by speaking in front of television lenses, but through political policy that seeks to bring people closer instead of moving them farther apart, to unite instead of divide, to equalize rather than make distinctions between races and religions and sexes.

Regardless of the motives behind the tragic incident at Fort Hood in Texas, there is a crime which deserves to be punished. Unfortunately there are also those supporters of hate who are quick to exploit the incident in order to achieve their own goals. This would in turn become the cause of more disasters and tragedies and crimes in the future. It is enough to point to the identity of the perpetrator, the medical officer who was also a “devout Muslim,” to create motivations for revenge in Americans and other non-Muslim Westerners against all things Muslim. We cannot continue the practice which we refused in the case of Marwa al-Sherbini: to search for pretexts and justifications in order to excuse the crime merely because the perpetrator was Muslim. The matter must be left to the investigators and courts in America. That does not mean, however, that free rein should be given to exploit the ignorance of people in the West about Islam and to allow the birth of further feelings of enmity and hate, or the petty sorting out of which side committed which crimes.