The Chapel Hill shootings show how urgent it is that we abandon hatred

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/13/chapel-hill-shootings-abandon-hatred

Version 0 of 1.

Three young American students were killed this week in a horrific shooting in North Carolina. Their names were Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, who was in his second year of a graduate school in dentistry, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, also a student.

Young lives cut short, ostensibly over a long-simmering dispute about a parking lot. I don’t accept this explanation for one second. In his pain, the young women’s father commented that his innocent daughters had died because today there is so much imagery of “Islamic terrorists”.

I look at their photos – beautiful young women with smiles of hope in headscarves with their graduation gowns. They were three young Muslims – don’t tell me this was about a parking lot.

Already the media is asking whether this was a hate crime, though for some outlets it took a while to pursue this theory. The prosecutor says it is too early to tell what happened. I do not blame Craig Hicks, the man who has been charged with the killings – but I blame those who have influenced him, who filled him with thoughts of violence and hatred, and the soft laws that allowed him to own a gun. Tell me, if a Muslim man had shot three white Americans in the head in their flat – would your first thoughts have been about a parking lot dispute or noise in the condominium?

Three daughters of mine met violent deaths in a shelling attack in Gaza in 2009. I know what it is to be a bereaved father. But I will never hate. Hatred begets more hatred, violence is an endemic disease. And who exactly should I be hating? Hatred in this world is causing corrosive damage. We need to break down barriers and work as loving individuals to get to know people of all cultures and accept our differences. We need to bridge the divide and provide our children with a peaceful environment to grow up in. Hatred is often fuelled by ignorance and racism. We should not hate something or someone we do not as yet know – it might turn out to be a new friendship, something that enriches our lives.

My other three daughters, who live with me in Toronto, are beautiful young humanitarians and clever students. Two will graduate this year. They, too, wear headscarves – and a graduation gown. I am frightened that one day my daughters will be walking down a street and that people seeing only stereotypes fuelled by the media and movies, will see the headscarves before they see my daughters. My lovely trio, who are my life, and lead independent lives, are well educated and look forward to a fulfilling future. I look at the two smiling women in the newspaper photo, and it is my dead daughters all over again.

We need to ask why such killings take place, as many times as it takes, to look at the causes, and speak out with courage. I am a doctor, so here’s an analogy. Violence and hatred are endemic diseases that cross borders like infectious illnesses. I always live in hope, however. I believe we can reverse this disease and we can immunise ourselves. But first we need to speak out, to get to know one another. Let’s inform our political leaders, get them on board, tell our newspaper editors, and fill our communities with tolerance and understanding.

Please let us ensure that these three young students did not die in vain, that we can learn from this situation to shun ethnic, religious or political stereotypes. Following the appalling killings recently in Paris, at the Charlie Hebdo offices and a kosher supermarket, tens of thousands of people across the world stood up in solidarity with the victims. Now I say let’s honour the memory of Deah, Razan and Yusor by speaking out against hate speech. All religions, including Islam, spread the message of tolerance, forgiveness, kindness, peace and equality, respect of neighbours and care of the neighbour.

But it is time for global political leaders, and Barack Obama in particular, to show that all are equal and no one is denied justice. They must start treating hatred as a destructive and pressing public health issue. For hatred to work, to create war and genocide, it must dehumanise the other – make stereotypes, out of individuals. We can stop this hopeless cycle of violence from repeating, but only if we work together.