A horrible murder in N. Carolina

The murder of three students in their apartment in North Carolina can only be seen as an ominous sign that hate-motivated terror is spreading into areas hardly expected to be home for such evil.

Craig Stefen Hick’s coldblooded shooting last week of two sisters, Yusur and Razan Mohammad Abu Salha, as well as Razan’s husband Deah Shaddy Barakat, a Syrian of Palestinian origin, has left most Jordanians in shock, partly because the two sisters are Jordanian Americans, but generally because all three victims are Arab Muslim students, highly respected in their community for their brilliance as well as their dedication to charity, and therefore the crime could not be viewed other than a hate crime by someone who hardly concealed his aggressive attitude towards religions, specifically Islam.

Hicks has been described (in The New York Times on February 12, 2015) as disruptive, constantly angry, unfriendly, irritated about noise, irascible about parking, hostile to religion and armed.

He also made everyone in his company uncomfortable, threatened and unsafe to the extent that residents of the condominium where he lived held a meeting to talk about him.

Yusur and Razan’s father, Mohammad Abu Salha, a member of the Jordan Medical Association, was privately quoted last Sunday as saying that his daughters had previously been threatened by the killer for wearing their Islamic attire.

They were told by the killer that they could not continue to appear that way within that community.

We are yet to wait for the results of the investigation to know the nature of the crime, its motives and the way in which it was committed.

It is hard to imagine that “dispute over parking” could lead an armed person to force his way into the victims’ apartment, order the three of them to kneel on the ground and shoot them one by one in the back of their heads to death.

For such senseless brutality, there must be heaps of racist rage, mounting hatred and uncontrollable compulsion for murder.

Racism is an old-time social disease that expresses itself in various forms. Like many other diseases, social prejudice and xenophobia thrive in a suitable environment, and as such, racists could not dream of a better environment than the one currently prevailing in our region, with terror in the name of religion spreading to distant corners of the world.

Despite the pretense otherwise, concerned states’ efforts to combat the danger of rising violence, frustration, radicalisation, despair and emptiness, or to address the underlying causes of such phenomena, such as international injustice, acquiescence to power politics, and neglect of the poor and the weak are constantly worthless.

Hence the chicken or egg game.

Where do we have to draw the line?

Where did this vicious cycle of violence and terror start?

Is it the injustice planted in Palestine seven decades ago with full condoning of the Western world until this very minute?

Is it the call for Islamic Jihad by world and regional powers to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan five decades ago that revived religious wars and created armies of frustrated fighters looking for an opportunity to empty their lethal energy long after their initial mission had expired?

Is it the foolish US-led war on Iraq 12 years ago that destroyed the country and its institutions, leaving behind sectarian wars, devastation, death, poverty, breakdown of services, disorder and insecurity?

The questions can be endless.

The humiliation as a result of the West’s double standards and lack of fairness towards Arab and Muslim peoples, mainly bias in favour of Israel, are overwhelming.

That has given rise to resentment in many, but was translated into violent trends by others.

The outcome is disastrous. The prospects are frightening. We see the danger advancing fast in all directions. We realise that no one is immune, and it does not really matter who takes the larger share of the blame for precipitating the political chaos and perpetual conflict.

Should we continue to toy with the chicken or egg game, or combine all available potential to plan together to arrest the threat first and deal with the piling consequences next, and perhaps learn some lessons?

The Arab world, indeed much of the Muslim world, is falling apart. Only small and isolated oases of political stability still exist and they are all under serious threat if the situation remains the same.

People without promise, without future and mostly without hope provide the right pool for terror recruitment. That is why extremists are winning and are fast advancing.

Violent manifestations of cultural polarisation, Islamophobia, racist tendencies and mutual fear are tearing societies in many countries apart.

The terror attacks in France, in Chapel Hill, in Denmark, just during the last few weeks, are only additional warnings of what may be coming if only meagre and superficial countermeasures are all the international community can take.

I rarely meet people who believe that a coalition of more than 60 major world powers could not defeat Daesh if they really wanted to. The Daesh terrorists are executing in an unprecedented and most gruesome way Jordanians, Egyptians, Iraqis, Americans, Japanese, Europeans, Syrians, Lebanese and others without facing any consequences. They seem to be encouraged by the inability of those they are targeting.

But even if under pressure of the soaring danger there will emerge a military force to fight the terrorists that should only be part of the solution.

The chaos and the terror have causes, and the causes must also be addressed.

That will take ages, but it has to start now.

The first thing firefighters do when dealing with an emergency is to find the cause of the problem and deal with it. No amount of fire extinguishers would succeed in putting out a fire caused by a gas leak if the leak is not first stopped.

Tracing the causes of terrorism should not be seen as an effort to justify terror. Under no circumstances should acts of terror or illegal use of force be accepted.

Yes, there are dangerous and evil terrorists as such, but they can still benefit from convenient circumstances playing on the needs, desperation, and bitterness of the vulnerable and the naive.

The battle with the extremists ought to be divided into three phases, His Majesty King Abdullah said. The military for destroying their ability to attack and harm others comes first. Next comes the security phase, when extremists should be denied any means of survival or regrouping. They should be traced and their infrastructure dismantled.

The last phase is to address the ideologies on which they feed. That takes years as it involves education as well as a revised religious discourse.

Here, at this last phase, is where the root causes need be radically addressed.

For a poor person to mind good advice, he or she may need first to have his legitimate needs secured.

Time is really running fast. Action should be taken.