FEAR has gripped America’s Muslim community because of an act of lunacy by an individual who was a soldier to boot. Mercifully, the predominantly Christian nation has shown a remarkable degree of restraint. While President Barack Obama cautioned his people against ‘jumping to conclusions’ because all facts were not yet available, the Council on American-Islamic Relations unequivocally condemned the ‘unconscionable crime’ which left at least 13 people dead and 30 wounded at Fort Hood. What motives Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US-born Muslim, had for resorting to this despicable act of madness against fellow Americans may take time to emerge.

But he was reported to be unhappy with his likely posting to Afghanistan. If that is the case, then he wasn’t the first — and most certainly not the last — American soldier to refuse to fight for his country. Refuseniks have been a feature of America’s military culture since the Vietnam war, a phenomenon that resurfaced during the Iraq war when many GIs inflicted wounds on themselves to go home.

America is no stranger to random shooting sprees in public places. Students have opened fire on colleagues in schools, and shootings in shopping plazas are not uncommon. In Orlando, Florida, a man who the neighbours had for quite some time thought was weird opened fire on a high-rise building wounding six people, one of whom died. Jason Rodriguez had been jobless for years, and on Friday he vented his frustration on the office of the company which had sacked him. Major Hasan is a psychiatrist at Fort Hood, which leads American army bases in suicides. At least 75 soldiers have killed themselves at this base in recent years. A large number of Americans returning from Iraq need psychiatric help, and it is a world-wide phenomenon that therapists themselves sometimes develop psychiatric problems listening to their patients. Hasan had also been complaining of racial harassment because of his Middle Eastern ethnicity.

Nevertheless, his crime cannot be justified or condoned, whatever his motives and grievances. He has brought shame on the thousands of Muslim men and women serving in the American armed forces and put the community at large at grave risk.

CAIR indeed voiced the sentiments of Muslims worldwide when it ‘vigorously’ condemned Hasan’s ‘contemptible attack,’ pleaded with all American Muslims to take precautions to protect themselves but also asked the media and community leaders to set ‘a tone of calm unity.’ We hope that the American people will take the crime for what it is — the action of a criminal. His sin cannot be attributed to his religion any more than Rodriguez’s to his faith.