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“Whoever kills a soul, it is as if he killed mankind entirely” — Holy Koran.

“Two young men, Americans, good students, successful parents, boys non-violent, living in a time of war…become killers” — Michael Moore.

This quote from the renowned documentary filmmaker Michael Moore could easily be about the Tsarnaev brothers, the suspected perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings. Much of the description fits. However, Moore made this statement about the two young men accused of the Columbine High School shooting massacre in Columbine, Colorado in 1999.

April 20, 1995, a Catholic, registered Republican, NRA member blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City, killing hundreds. None of the words used to describe the accused, Timothy McVeigh, were the reasons he committed such a heinous crime.

The accused in the Aurora, Colorado massacre of 2012, James Holmes, could also very well fit Moore’s description of the Columbine massacre perpetrators.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in 2012, there were mass shootings in Toulouse, France, by a French national of Algerian origin. The circumstances were quite similar to what occurred in Boston last week.

The common thread that ties all these unfortunate incidents, and no doubt many more, are complex, and cannot, should not, be tied emphatically to reasons based on the religious, cultural or ethnic backgrounds of the perpetrators alone. That would be oversimplifying very grave, complicated matters, and undoubtedly, pointing fingers and easily and unjustly placing blame on entire religious, cultural and ethnic groups for the vile acts of a few.

However, this is done time and again by the media, politicians and the general public in an attempt to understand why these young men simply snap and go on such violent killing sprees. As cited in the few examples above, some of the perpetrators’ backgrounds are similar, some not and certainly, none of the apparent reasons for their crimes (if any reasons to commit such atrocities exist) seem to be of the same nature. Therefore, simplifying matters for our own comfort zone, making sweeping generalisations and accepting them would be entirely missing the point.

Logically speaking, in the case of the Boston bombers, the two brothers had moved to the United States 10 years ago, and thus it can be said that that is where they spent their formative years. Tamerlan would have been 16 and Djokhar only nine. This would imply that much of their thinking and mindset would be shaped in the United States. Granted that although legally they were both integrated in the United States, one being a naturalised US citizen and the other a legal permanent resident, they may have not been immune to the pressures of adjusting to their new environment, particularly since their father had left the US and moved back to Russia, leaving the rest of the family.

Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that their motives could be linked to the alienation that young immigrants feel sometimes. Their inability to cope could lead them at times to ‘snap’. Everyday challenges and minor failures may probably be more relevant than the national struggle between Chechnya and Russia some 10,000 kilometres away. Of course, that the Chechen national struggle or some other external factor provided some twisted cause for their actions cannot be denied. But, real motives could very well be homegrown pressures of life that lead young people to lose perspective, similar to those motivating other mass killers.

This can be clearly observed in the case of Mohamed Merah, the accused mass shooter in the Toulouse, France incident. Merah was of Algerian descent but was born and raised his entire life in France. What caused him to snap was probably far more relevant to his immediate surroundings in France than what was occurring in his country of origin that he did not even really know.

This raises the issue of religion. It is an unfortunate gross misconception that terrorism, jihad and Islam are synonymous, one and the same. The reprehensible actions of Merah, the Tsarnaevs, those responsible for 9/11, etc, are as much tied to Islam and the Koran as the Oklahoma City bombings are tied to Catholicism and the teachings of the Bible.

Would it be at all fair and within the realms of decency to make sweeping judgments that because there are rampant sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church that these vile practices are the teachings of Christ or the Bible and that all Catholics adhere to such ideas and practices? Of course not. By the same token, connecting Islam and acts of terror and suicide bombings are as ridiculously far-fetched. No religion preaches violence. There are no ifs ands or buts about it. Terrorist cells around the world are not religious organisations.

Until and unless religion and religious values can be separated from these acts of violence, whether we are talking about sex scandals linked to the Catholic Church or the terror links to the mosque, we risk remaining far removed from the core of the real issues of the origins of such violence and even further from understanding these young people who commit the crimes.

Djokhar Tsarmnaev is a treasure trove of information in finding clues in attempting to prevent further tragedies. Instead of searching for ways to file federal charges against him in order to make him eligible for the death penalty (since Massachusetts does not have the death penalty), perhaps the authorities should take this opportunity to understand the problem and try to find long term solutions in the absence of a blame game? Would that be too much to ask?

The writer is an English and French professor and columnist residing in the USA and France. She can be reached at scballand@gmail.com and on twitter @sabriaballand