Daily Archive: July 9, 2009

The tragic death of Marwa El Sherbini 14

The tragic death of Marwa El Sherbini

Probably most of you by now read about the tragic story of Marwa El Sherbini. Now there are a number of ways in which this event can be framed. We can talk about a terrorist attack at the German constitutional state, we can talk about an act of heroïsm: the husband who tries to save the woman he loves and/or the mother of his children, we can talk about how Russian culture influences Alex’s decision to kill her or how German culture is to blame. We can talk about it as proof of a serious breach in the safety procedures of the court room. But this doesn’t happen. In general we see two frames: headscarf-martyr and the angry Muslim.