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Suddenly, we have a dark autumn of terror in Europe. In the last month, France has suffered three serious incidents with jihadist signs:
● An 18-year-old Pakistani stabs two people in front of the old premises of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
● An 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin kills teacher Samuel Paty on his way home from school in a suburb of Paris.
● A 21-year-old Tunisian kills three people inside Nice Cathedral.
The act has made politicians demand tighter scrutiny of Islamist-tinged organizations. The public debate talks about freedom of religion and expression versus extremism: how the Prophet Muhammad may or may not be represented in Islam.
Monday’s attack on the Vienna synagogue was also carried out by a very young man, a 20-year-old man born in Austria but with roots in northern Macedonia.
The Vienna attack shows that terrorism is not limited to France, and that violent jihadism exists as a threat, whether or not there is a “Muhammad debate.”
The attacks in central Europe evoke vicious memories of four or five years ago, when terror broke out in central Paris, at Brussels and Istanbul airports, on the Nice seafront and at the Berlin Christmas market. There were also several knife cuts of the type that we have now seen.
Are we heading towards a situation of escalating terrorism in Europe, towards the same situation as in 2016? The ominous thing is that this type of attack appears to be contagious: Terrorist cells and individual fanatics inspire each other.
On the other hand, in recent years, European intelligence services have improved in monitoring radical environments and exposing terrorist plans. But that is not enough to eliminate the terrorist threat.
Every attack is displayed with icy clarity how vulnerable European societies are. In Nice, the city government boasts of having installed the most modern surveillance system in Europe: almost 4,000 cameras monitor the city’s half-million inhabitants. Still, the deadly knife attack on the cathedral could still be carried out.
In fact, no matter how high walls we build, there will still be young people who have been so brainwashed that they have dehumanized anyone who does not share their violent and doomed doctrine. They face hatred and disgust not only against Europeans, but also against other Muslims or religious minorities in the Middle East, for example.
How should we “make” them think differently? This is a question that must be asked, and preferably answered, if jihadist terrorism is to be effectively countered.
