Parents of Ali David Sonboly, 18, had gone an extra mile to camouflage their son as a member of the western society by naming him David. Complexion was also in his favor as he was white, not easy to be differentiated from white crowds in western malls. But they failed…to safe him and nine other innocent lives that he took.
This is the dilemma of second generation migrants in western societies that they face discrimination, observed Prof Dr Imran Sabir of the Department of Sociology, Quaid-i-Azam University. Even though they don’t remember if it is an Eid day or how to say prayers properly, the second generation migrants are given religious labels and are spotted easily because of their dark complexions and Arabic names.
On the other hand, the first generation of migrants carries the usual divine baggage, a gift of the oriental societies where they have come from. They are over-ambitious for becoming member of western societies and survive discriminations firmly. They are the barrier breakers. But in their zeal, they unconsciously set the bar too higher for their younger generations.
Sonboly, a victim and a killer at the same time, suffered this problem. Hassled and hooted on racial grounds for seven years! Those seven years that he was supposed to spend in playing games and learning to live! From 11 years of age to 18!
Standing on a roof top, he had a verbal clash with somebody in a balcony of that building, shouting racial slurs at him. In reply, he said that he is a “German” and born in Germany. It sure indicates to high values of German society that if somebody is born there, they accept him as one of their own. In contrast, if somebody is born and dead in a gulf kingdom or mullah-dom, he cannot be a member of their societies, which is the climax of racialism.
Sonboly said in that heated argument that he has been facing such “bullying” for seven years before he mounted the killing spree. Munich massacre represents the bloody face of the dilemma that secong-generation migrants face. They demand equality in western societies which they are denied. Their problem is compounded when they are not accepted as a normal human being in the oriental societies of their parents.
Confused in this racial scenario, many found solace in religion and are attracted to the calls of the clerics who preach online, having stashed venom in shelves of so-called centers for peace and Islamophobia in western capitals. Some of them culminate in death deserts of the Middle East where it rains severed heads. Some are reduced to robots acquiring conditioned reflexes to extreme incidents and muffling down their inner self at somewhere unseen. And others go to the path that Sonboly and Florida night club killer of Afghan origin chose.
There is a need to focus research on second generation of migrants in western societies who are not able to keep the heady brew of race and religion down the way their elders did. Saving them is saving future.