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Egyptian Author on Murdered Muslim Woman

'The Reaction of the German Government Was Not Fair'

In a SPIEGEL interview, Egyptian author Alaa al-Aswany discusses the shocking murder of an Egyptian in Dresden, anti-German protests across the Islamic world and latent racism in the West.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Aswany, in your novel "Chicago," you describe the way Arabs have lived in the West after Sept. 11, 2001. Measured against the epochal cultural clash of recent years, it's a relatively cheerful book. How will the murder of Egyptian lady Marwa al-Sherbini in Dresden, Germany affect the relationship between Arabs and the West?

Aswany: In every Western country, there are people who fundamentally dislike any foreigners. In this specific case, the issue is that a woman was murdered in a courtroom -- she was literally massacred. The killer stabbed her 18 times. And when a police officer finally appeared on the scene to help her, he shot -- by accident, as they say -- the first Arab he saw: the victim's husband. The German government bears some of the responsibility for this tragedy, if only because of where the crime was committed, and it has not embraced this responsibility.

SPIEGEL: What exactly do you expect from the German government? The politicians have already publicly expressed their dismay.

Aswany: What upsets us Egyptians, most of all, is the delay and hesitation with which they reacted. We interpret this as a sign of racism, which we wouldn't do if Berlin had commented earlier and in a more decisive way. In Egypt, a country whose regime I do not support, an official statement would undoubtedly have been released immediately after the crime. How could this have happened? Who was responsible for security in that courtroom? What do we do with these people? These are highly relevant questions -- not in terms of the crime itself, but the stance of the German government. I doubt that a man with a long beard and wearing Arab robes would have been able to smuggle a knife into a German courtroom.

SPIEGEL: In your book "The Yacoubian Building," which was published before "Chicago," you also describe the excesses of militant Islamism. Did you feel that the anti-German protests that erupted were appropriate?

Aswany: I understand these reactions. There is, quite simply, great sympathy for Marwa al-Sherbini, an educated woman who went abroad with her husband to find a better life -- and was gruesomely killed.

SPIEGEL: Some protestors at her funeral shouted that the Germans are "enemies of God." Iranian President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad even proposed a United Nations resolution against Germany.

Aswany: These are exaggerations and manipulations. Some even seek to portray Marwa as a "headscarf martyr." But that's not the issue at all. Three churches here in Egypt held services for her, even though she wasn't a Christian. Even if she had been a Christian, I'm sure that we would have seen the same reaction.

SPIEGEL: Are you saying that it's not about religion at all?

Aswany: The case has essentially nothing to do with religion, but it is being exploited for religious purposes, as a case of Islamophobia. The instinctive anger we all feel comes from a different place: All human beings have a natural sense of justice, and it was severely violated. I insist that the reaction of the German government was not fair.

SPIEGEL: Where do the West and the Islamic world stand today -- after Sept. 11, 2001, and after the war in Iraq and the intervention in Afghanistan -- in the battle or the dialogue between civilizations?

Aswany: I do not believe, fundamentally, in Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations." The clashes, the conflicts of history, were always political. They have been and still are struggles over the distribution of power, land and money. That's what the historians should write about. But there is also the human history, and that history is written by literature. It's about racism and prejudices, among other things, and about people who simply cannot imagine what it looks like on the other side.

SPIEGEL: There was the conflict over the Mohammed caricatures and Pope Benedict's controversial remarks about the alleged propensity towards violence in Islam. What can intellectuals like you do to discourage agitation and violence?

Aswany: Tell the truth. And that means that, with all due respect, I cannot help but criticize the German government in the case of Marwa al-Sherbini. In the case of the Mohammed caricatures, I went to Denmark and asked the cartoonist in question to write down that he was reacting to fanaticism, as he experiences it in the West. As intellectuals, we have an obligation to examine background information and not just shoot from the hip.

SPIEGEL: In an essay about the Dresden murder, you mention Carl Hagenbeck, the director of a Hamburg zoo who brought natives of exotic countries to Europe in the 19th century and displayed them in "ethnological exhibitions." What were you driving at with this comparison?

Aswany: I wanted to point out the difference between racist consciousness and a racist act. We are apparently dealing with the latter in Dresden, but we often encounter racist consciousness in the most affable, warm-hearted people. This consciousness, which grows over decades, exists in a latent form. Although it never has to emerge, it certainly can. The example of the human zoos that existed in Europe during the colonial era gets to the point of where racism always begins: with the feeling of "those who are different from me."

SPIEGEL: A few weeks ago, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that the burqa, the full-body veil, is "not welcome" in France. Is Islam the total embodiment of foreignness for the West?

Aswany: At any rate, it has very little to do with religion anymore. Unfortunately, Muslims have allowed an interpretation to determine the image of their religion that is supported by the regime in Saudi Arabia. Its mosques, its theories and its clothing regulations shape the image of Islam in the West. It is hard to explain that, in many cases, these are merely the customs of a single desert tribe, and not those of Islam. Racists are generally not very intelligent, which leads to sometimes tragic and sometimes comic misunderstandings. In California, an Egyptian Coptic Christian was killed after Sept. 11, 2001. Unfortunately, no one asked him what his religion was. After that incident, a Jordanian put up a sign in front of his house that read: "I'm an Arab, but I'm a Christian."

SPIEGEL: On the one hand, you criticize the Islamophobic tendencies in the West, but on the other hand you are an avowed liberal who is sharply attacked by fundamentalists in Egypt. Is that a contradiction for you?

Aswany: That's the nice thing about being secular and democratic: I am opposed to fanaticism in any form, and I see the same aspect everywhere, namely the humanitarian aspect. As a result, it isn't hard for me to understand what goes on in a family whose daughter was killed the way Marwa al-Sherbini was. This is a very important point. After this murder, when the Muslims were protesting, a Western newspaper argued that Germany's legal system ought to be compared with the system in Egypt. But we cannot compare the two. Egypt is not a country of justice, and no one can claim that it is. But you are our role models! You are a democratic country under the rule of law! So you should practice justice!