The daily crime scenario is becoming unbelievably scary. Newspapers are full of news every day about crimes committed by youth in Kuwait. It matters little whether these youth were Kuwaitis or expats or Bedouins. The important fact is that such crimes were happening in Kuwait. It definitely enjoins a responsibility upon all of us, if not for their actions then at least about how to fight back, how to stop this crazy daily violence. We can no longer ignore the fact that innocent lives are coming under threat every day. Moreover, I am not in favor of making any excuses about the criminals being young and irrational.
I think it is we who are being irrational by trying to see these crimes through such tinted glasses. That is completely unacceptable. I refuse to make any excuses for any kind of crime, particularly one committed in cold blood. It isn’t funny anymore. Every time I hear someone trying to justify a crime, I feel sick. Recently, in the course of a TV interview, in which I was talking about those who kill others in cold blood because they have a disagreement or are enraged after a trivial fight over a parking lot, I was surprised that the other guest on the panel who happened to be a college professor, claimed that there was no such crime as a cold blood murder and any murder usually happened as a result of someone being under a huge stress.
I am not a college professor but I believe that the fact that a man can go to a local market to buy a knife and then wait for his victims who he stabs a couple of times can only be called guilty of cold murder. What else can you call such a crime? I cannot think of even killing a chicken, so surely I cannot think what could prompt someone to kill a living soul and then claim to be under pressure. Does that mean that every time someone is under pressure, he would go and kill someone to make him feel better? Is killing people a way to destress? May be for maniacs it is so.
In Kuwait, we do not have a problem of not having laws, but we do have a problem enforcing these laws. There is need to enforce the law to stop criminality, irrespective of how high and mighty a criminal may be. Please consider this a clarion call to the decision makers that security is not something negotiable. It is literally a matter of life and death. No country can ever falter on the issue of security and safety of its people
(Muna Al-Fuzai is a columnist at Kuwait Times, where this article was published on Dec. 26, 2012)
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