Who are these killers? And what should we, the ones who receive these pieces of news, lamenting the fact that we are a part of these murderers’ culture, and the children of their religion, do in this case? Perhaps we should be envious of Al-Jazeera, who easily pops up after every crime, to claim that Islam is being targeted! Perhaps this is the solution we can use to relieve our suffocation, to continue to claim the same thing. As we were busy reporting about the crime that took place in Paris, Nice’s criminal rushed in with his knife, and we had not yet caught our breath before the Avignon criminal, who was attempting the same evil, was killed by the police. In the same second, a Saudi citizen tried to attack the French consulate in Jeddah. All these events took place on the morning of the Prophet’s birthday! What do the murders mean by this? What are they trying to say? “God is great” (Allahu Akbar), was the phrase they uttered both before and after their crimes. What should we, the ones who were born with the phrase “God is Great” whispered into our ears, as part of our mothers’ ritual prayers, think of these events?! How can we avoid the victim’s face and the head of the one who was slaughtered?
These crimes are too powerful, for us to hide in their shadows. They will follow us wherever we go. They were committed in our name, at a time when borders, countries and oceans no longer separate us from their victims. The crime in Nice is also the crime in Beirut and the crime of Istanbul, the same as the crime the murderer in Jeddah tried commit, the same as the crime that Recep Tayyip Erdogan committed throughout his speech in the Turkish Parliament, and the same as the crime Al-Jazeera seeks to commit in response to these acts that we do not relate to.
Today is a day of calamity in France, but also a day of astonishment for us, when we thought we were different from the Chechen teenager. It is a day of suspicion; suspicion of everything. Should we be looking for a new killer’s face among us? It is an unbelievable situation. “We live in a warlike atmosphere,” said our Paris-based friend. The murderers hate France, and apparently they also hate the more than 5 million Muslims there. The other function of these crimes is to terminate any trace of the presence of Muslims left, in a country that is in fact home to the largest Muslim community. It is no longer useful to discuss the other side of the event, as we are now facing the direct function of it. So here we are, when someone marks his crime in the name of Islam, Al-Azhar announces that he will sue “Charlie Hebdo” the newspaper, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan states that Emmanuel Macron is in need of a mental hospital! Is there a relationship between all these indicators? Will Al-Azhar condemn this crime? How will he act in the face of the fact that his lawsuit was consistent with the same “anger” that led to the occurrence of the crime?
Starting today, France will embark on a different path in its relationship with its immigrants, and with its Muslims, specifically, and It’s going to be difficult for the skeptics of this decision to justify their doubts. The best thing to do in this case is to start searching for the sources of these crimes, and to consider the role of the system that is incubating them. We need to hold accountable the crimes’ many spokesmen, who are insensitive to the beheading scenes and the establishment of the death penalty. We need to stand with France in its tragedy, not only with our consolation, but by standing by its values.
