|
|
| RACISM :EGYPTIAN WOMAN STABBED TO DEATH IN GERMANY |
7/30/2009 |
|
Racism takes different forms at different places and at different times, but, basically, it is an attitude or ideological stance that is divisive and anti-humanist. It does not take all the human beings to be equal, for peaceful co-existence. After all, there is an African maxim that all fingers are not equal.
However, dividing the entire society into two compartments, namely, human and subhuman beings is the basis for racism. The latter are not to be allowed equal rights and equal opportunities with human beings. In fact, racism is an instrument of discrimination and a tool of exploitation as history testifies. Throughout history it has been used to justify mass killings, genocide, exploitation, extortion and discrimination of the worst kinds. At times racism has been employed to underline the belief that race is the principal determinant of human capacities including intelligence. It is very deploring that with globalization and the world as a global village; racism instead of abetting is shooting out its ugly heads like an octopus.
This case would sound like an act in a fiction story or one of the flips watched in movie advertisements. It is none of the two. It is true and occurred in June 2009 to an African in Germany. Marwa Sherbini, 33, was stabbed to death in a courtroom in the German city of Dresden in a crime believed to be racially motivated, as she prepared to give testimony against a German man of Russian descent whom she had sued for insult and abuse. The man, identified only as Alex A., 28, was convicted of calling Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, "terrorist," "bitch" and "Islamist" when Marwa asked him to leave a swing for her 3-year-old son Mustafa during an August 2008 visit to a children''s park.
The court found him guilty and fined him 750 Euros ($1,050) but he appealed the ruling.
The two were then in court that fateful June day for the appeal when Alex A. pulled out a knife and stabbed Sherbini 18 times. He also stabbed her husband Elwi Okaz, three times and attacked another person. Sherbini who was three months pregnant at the time died while the husband Elwi Okaz is also in a critical condition in hospital, after being injured as he tried to save his wife. It was reported that he was shot by the police accidentally. Elwi Okaz was finishing a scholarship at a German institute in genetics. The three-year-old son was with the family in court when she was killed.
Alex W is now under arrest in Dresden for suspected murder. German prosecutors have said the 28-year-old attacker, was driven by a deep hatred of foreigners and Muslims. The case has attracted much attention in Egypt, the Muslim world and beyond. It was Noel Martin- a British- Jamaican in the German City of Brandenburg in June 1996, paralyzed for life when he was attacked by young “skin heads”. The prosecutors confirmed that the action was totally racially motivated. In June 2009, it was Marwa Sherbini, and the list continues to grow.
Many protesters see the case as an extreme manifestation of European Islamophobia, especially because of the initially muted reaction to the crime in Germany. Though reports say German Chancellor Angela Merkel will offer condolences for Marwa Sheribini''s death to Egyptian leaders at the G-8 summit in Italy.
The case leaves a lot of bugging questions viz-how long did it take the professional butcher to make 21 stabbings on the family- 18 on the woman and three on the husband? Was no thorough searching conducted on him before he entered the court-room? Where were the police orderlies when Alex was demonstrating his brutality prowess on defenseless Marwa? What was supposed to be the role of the police orderlies in the court-only to react when the judge’s life is in danger? The police bullet wounded Elwi Okaz, who was trying to save the wife (peradventure), was Alex A., also shot or is he a mystery or bionic man? Shouldn’t the police orderlies for failing or refusing to do their duty be charged for complicity and or negligence? Evil triumphs when good people look the other way in such circumstance.
Until the German authorities impose stiff penalty on racist offenders, their citizens would not stop showing that racist blood flows in their veins.
|
|
|
|
| Comments | Post your comment |
|
|
|
