Nahid al-Manae was stabbed to death 16 times in the UK this week. She was a Saudi national who had moved to the UK to study a course in English before pursuing a PhD in Life Sciences. Her stabbing is suspected to be a hate crime, exacerbated by the fact that she was wearing her Muslim dress, an abaya and a headscarf while walking to university.
What is scary is how much Nahid and I have in common. I too am an Arab Muslim woman who came to the UK to pursue a degree in science. I too live in a small town, and walk to university each day, and I too take a shortcut past a small lake on my way to class. As if it was not intimidating enough to be a woman studying a degree in science, I now feel that I have even more to be worried about.
Categories: Bigotry, Europe and Australia, Hate Crime, Interfaith tolerance, Islamophobia, Murder, UK
It reminds me my discussion with a German high up. He made an effort to define integration of Muslim in the western European society to which I did not agree. Actually when so called western leaders demand more integration they eventually mean to leave all your cultural and religious values and adapt to local traditions and culture. On the face value they may not utter this wish so openly but in their hearts they mean so. It is extremely tragic that in such a multicultural country this barbaric act took place. It will remain a black stigma on the face of UK.