On July 1, Marwa El Sherbini was stabbed 18 times by a crazed, xenophobic and racist German man inside a Dresden court. The resulting silence by Western media over the murder of a veiled Muslim woman has highlighted the horrific state the media finds itself in these days. Her murder comes as media praise the film “The Stoning of Soraya M” continues to flood the pages of American press. The film is a horrific tale of a village gone crazy over a woman, who they put to death in dramatic fashion, told to a man passing through an Iranian town in 1986. The West seems eager to portray crazy Muslims without avail, but the murder of Marwa has recieved little attention. Bikya Masr already called out Western media for its bias, but now, almost one week after her killing, they remain muted over the murder, with reports continuing to quote German sources as saying this is not “part of an organized killing.” But it is. It is part of Europe's failure to deal with its Muslim inhabitants in a tolerant manner. The West has been quick to jump on sectarianism in the Middle East, xenophobic statement by Muslim leaders and the horrific side of Islamic radicalism, but now, when a racist, Nazi-like, crime occurs inside the continent of “freedom” there is silence. This silence cannot persist, for if it does, the killin of Marwa S. will have reverberations across the region that will have a long impact on how Arabs and Muslims percieve the West. Soraya M.'s death is a dark shadow on Iranian society and shows how a village mob can go to extremes, but the killing of Marwa is even worse, when put into context. She was an average citizen, following legal action against a man who had insulted her. “Where is the coverage of this crime,” began one Egyptian activist in a conversation on Saturday in a Cairo cafe. “They don't want to show that Europeans are still racist or what?” the woman asked, in reference to the killing. Marwa's killing has sparked outrage over the role European thinking had in the murder. Questions over the means the killing took place have been well-documented in Egyptian and Arabic press. They wonder how a woman could be stabbed 18 times in a public courtroom without police intervention. How could her husband be shot? Was he targeted because he was Arab? These questions have been left out of the discourse by Western media outlets, who attempt to play down the murder. The killing of Marwa S. cannot be kept hush by Western media. It is their duty to show the horror's of Europe's xenophobia and intolerance towards their Araba and Muslim residents. If it continues to hide the facts to its readers, it will be because they deep down have an intolerance toward Muslims inherent in their reporting. When a Western woman is mistreated in the Arab world, accounts are detailed without pause, but when an Arab woman is killed in Europe, the murder is argued away as a “one-time” incident that is not part of European society. How do they figure? The killing of Marwa S. cannot be hidden. Arabs know and understand the cause for her murder and their anger over it and the coverage of the killing will not be stopped. Shame on the West for its silence. BM
