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Axe attack in German train station


RIchard Britten

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Mad axemen and knifemen have always been a low level risk in even the most peaceful societies.

 

Until recently they were not given a lot of coverage unless they attacked MPs and that sort of thing. Most got no more than a few inside paragraphs and that was that.

 

Nowadays the frenetic 24 hour media is obsessed with lone wolf Islamic terrorism. Various groups from Hamas to scIS have called on their followers to go on knife frenzies or car rampages.

 

Without context it is reasonably difficult to distinguish between these two societal problems and in the hot offthe press world context is nearly always missing.

 

In the US it is usually unclear when someone pulls out a gun and starts shooting whether it is "just" Dwayne going postal or some lone wolf taking his terrorist revenge - whether domestic or Islamic. In the U.K. and Europe the same applies to knifemen, axemen and the occasional erratic driver.

 

Such things are a Rorschach test for our times. Mr Britten has one knee jerk response, so does Fox News. Both are reasonably boring and don't really tell us that much about the dangers our societies really face.

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Mad axemen and knifemen have always been a low level risk in even the most peaceful societies.

 

Until recently they were not given a lot of coverage unless they attacked MPs and that sort of thing. Most got no more than a few inside paragraphs and that was that.

 

Nowadays the frenetic 24 hour media is obsessed with lone wolf Islamic terrorism. Various groups from Hamas to scIS have called on their followers to go on knife frenzies or car rampages.

 

Without context it is reasonably difficult to distinguish between these two societal problems and in the hot offthe press world context is nearly always missing.

 

In the US it is usually unclear when someone pulls out a gun and starts shooting whether it is "just" Dwayne going postal or some lone wolf taking his terrorist revenge - whether domestic or Islamic. In the U.K. and Europe the same applies to knifemen, axemen and the occasional erratic driver.

 

Such things are a Rorschach test for our times. Mr Britten has one knee jerk response, so does Fox News. Both are reasonably boring and don't really tell us that much about the dangers our societies really face.

 

Sorry but I don't think I knee jerked. When hearing of the attack I waited until they announced it wasn't "the usual suspects".

 

Reading DM and Breitbart only an hour ago and still even after it was confirmed it wasn't "TUS" they are still blaming it on immigrants and "rapeugees".

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Interesting form of words though. "From former Yugoslavia." Might as well say "From former Roman Empire". Is there something they are reluctant to say about who he is and where he's from? Did he wander in unchecked with the hordes? Is he a good Catholic boy?

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Interesting form of words though. "From former Yugoslavia." Might as well say "From former Roman Empire". Is there something they are reluctant to say about who he is and where he's from? Did he wander in unchecked with the hordes? Is he a good Catholic boy?

 

Probably because most people don't know the name of foreign countries until we are invading it on a daily basis...yet couldn't point it on a map.

 

When he was born/lived there is was called Yugoslavia. Also it is shorter to write "former Yugoslavia" than "Bosnia which was part of the former Yugoslavia"

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