Not holding the traditional Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg this year — where last year a jihadist drove into the crowd and killed six people — represents a defeat for the free world that does not do so. … We should take it lightly. The company organizing the market received a letter from the state administration stating that the security measures it had planned were not sufficient and demanded requirements that the entity claims it cannot meet. This led to the suspension of the symbolic event. The fact that a company is unable to carry out an adequate security deployment and that government forces are not in charge hides an unpleasant reality. It is about the disturbing reality of how terrorism achieves its main goal, which is to intimidate its victims and limit their lives.
The Magdeburg terrorist, who is on trial these days, could have attacked elsewhere, and any other gathering of people today could become a scene of terrorism for those who seek to end our way of life, our way of thinking, our traditions and our beliefs. However, there are places like the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, the Ramblas in Barcelona, the fireworks in Nice, or the flea market itself, that have become living symbols that we must be able to preserve in the face of the ever-present threat of the barbarism that screams outside the walls and that destroys the heart of the West whenever it gets the chance. These places, despite themselves, have become temples of freedom that we must keep open and shining, so that those who attack them know that they can end the lives of some of us, but that we as a society are invincible and not willing to take a step back.
The market suspension (which runs the risk of spreading in Germany, especially in those small towns) represents, on first reading, an exercise equivalent to an agreement with those who practice terrorism once it gives them a very strong victory. Legitimizing evil in a certain way means that the threat achieves its goals and can signal to future terrorists that their terrible actions are having the effect they intended. That they can change and destroy what they hate deep down, and that their practice is beneficial. Second, it spreads terror in other areas that appear to be at risk. If there is not enough security to go to the Christmas market, to what extent can people continue to go to the cinema, to Mass, to concerts, to shopping malls where crowds gather? Can you go out on Christmas? Will countries not also take responsibility for their own security and expect Europeans, who are under constant threat, to remain confined to their homes?
We must assume that spreading terror is within everyone’s reach, and that we live in fragile societies, but we are determined to prevail. These comparisons make the state’s decision to ban these events absurd, because other events could also be the subject of the wrath of those who seek to do evil. Finally, this defeatism is consistent with extreme populism, which claims that our idea of Europe has been defeated, that current governments do not defend its essence strongly enough and propose more radical solutions, and whose rise continues to surprise those who arm them with reasons.
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