Killing of three Muslims in US: You reap what you sow

On Tuesday night, a white American identified as Craig Stephen Hicks killed three Muslims, Deah Barakat, 23; his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19. Barakat was a second-year dental student at the University of North Carolina where his wife was planning to begin her dental studies in the fall. Her sister was a student at North Carolina State University.

The Americans were unmoved. They treated the incident as an ordinary homicide where a man killed three of his neighbors over a parking dispute. Yet everyone knew that the Barakat couple were kindhearted and full of compassion. Deah had travelled to Palestine to treat needy children. Razan led a donation campaign for the homeless in North Carolina. Deah also launched a donations campaign for a website to provide dental care for Syrian refugees in Turkey.

The American media displayed utter disinterest. The American administration and Capitol Hill had nothing to say. This angered Muslims.

The Islamic world, on the other hand, was in a state of uproar. Muslims all over the world regarded the incident as a religious hate killing.

The incident may or may not be a hate crime. Yet, it has to be taken seriously and should be regarded as a wakeup call for leaders of the Western world. It is clear that hatred for Islam has been simmering for quite some time in the societies of the West, and the U.S. is no exception. Especially the fact that many Muslims in the U.S. are also black adds to the hatred.

The Presidency of the Religious Affairs in Turkey (DİB) has been drawing attention to this growing menace for quite some time and warning that xenophobia in Europe has turned into Islamophobia, which is seriously alienating the 25 million Muslims on the continent. The situation is very serious, especially in France, thus the recent terrorist attacks in Paris were hardly a surprise.

DİB has been stressing that world leaders have to create rules and morals of coexistence in their societies that host people from different races, beliefs and religions.

Western leaders, led by U.S. President Barrack Obama, are stressing in their statements that Islam should not be blamed for the violence, yet they are not taking effective measures to ease the simmering hatred in their societies for Islam. Words are meaningless when there is no action to tone down this hatred. So you get a hothead in the U.S. who killed three Muslim students, you get neo-Nazis in Europe who torch the homes of Turks, killing women and children.

So President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is justified in displaying indignation over American inactivity and insensitivity over the killings in North Carolina. President Obama should pay more attention to actively opposing hate killings and the rise of anti-Islam sentiment in the U.S.