Man-haters and end-time prophets are so similar. They are united by the deeply authoritarian ideology of the radical.
The wind stays behind. He blows pieces of paper and loses packaging in front of him. There is no one else between the stalls of the Christmas market in Magdeburg. This is the silence of death. Five people have died in the attack so far. My thoughts are with those who are seriously injured and fighting for their lives and with everyone whose limbs and souls have been shocked. Maybe it will help. Especially when we all do it.
The screaming on the internet seems like a contrast to the silence of grief. The perpetrator, a Saudi doctor from Bernburg, acts like an accelerant for conspiracy theories of all kinds. This is certainly also because he himself is deeply lost in it and has apparently been conspicuous for a long time.
He probably had this outrageous act in mind for a long time and sees himself as a political activist with a murderous mission. The authorities, on the other hand, are at a loss. They don't know how to classify the crime. Act of terrorism, rampage, result of mental illness?
The perpetrator describes himself as an Islamophobe, who therefore feels connected to the AfD. This confuses the brains of conspiracy theorists. How can an Arab be so explicitly right-wing?
Depending on his ideology, he is described very differently online: as a disguised leftist who is supposed to discredit the AfD, as a militant Islamist who only claims to be against Islam, and of course also as a Mossad agent who wants to harm the Palestinian cause .
As soon as the accident happened, speculation began as to how this terrible act would be used in the election campaign. And what were the reasons for this barbaric act. One side says that Germany is too Islam and refugee-friendly.
Others see the oppression of Muslims as the cause. Right-wing extremists and Islamists are currently heating up the mood. Over 1,500 Nazis demonstrate in Magdeburg who don't care about any of this. In the end, the killer is just a “foreigner”.
Yet they are so similar to each other, these conspiracy theorists, misanthropes and end-time prophets. They are united by the deeply authoritarian ideology of the radical. Patterns and structures are the same, as is the madness that drives them. They are siblings in spirit. They are united in terror.
They want to destroy liberal democracy as a whole and not criticize its shortcomings. And there are plenty of them. Also this fall. It doesn't matter whether Germany shows too much or too little understanding of Islam.
To be honest, I would be happy if political Islam, Islamism, no matter how it presents itself, were actually recognized as a danger and taken seriously. Attentive, concrete and vigilant. Without trivializing, without generalizing.
We cannot undo what happened in Magdeburg. All we can do is pick up the loose pieces of paper in the wind and help Magdeburg get through the trauma. Maybe something else will help.
The confusion about the perpetrator's motive shows that one person's radicalism cannot be defeated by another's radicalism. But with compassion, care and humanity. And isn't that what Christmas is all about?
Anetta Kahane was chairman of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.
