The attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market and the questions we should be asking

In recent days I have been presenting here the known facts about this Friday's attack in Magdeburg, Germany.

A woman warned about the Magdeburg killer in 2023: he wanted to kill 20 Germans
What we know about the Saudi arrested for the attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market

I have published what was known about this attacker. Obviously, these are strange circumstances, as attacks like this are usually carried out by Islamist terrorists, especially if the perpetrator is a Saudi citizen. But my role as a communicator when talking about a crime should not be to manipulate the facts to fit anyone's ideological puzzle, but to present the facts, or what we know about them, even if it is sometimes difficult to understand. If the piece doesn't fit, it may be because we tried to put it in the wrong puzzle or because there are details we don't yet know.

As I mentioned yesterday, I believe that this attack could have been avoided if there were stricter filters for asylum applications. This is what some German media are now addressing: the State has failed, after granting asylum to a man who had already been convicted of threatening to commit crimes, and by ignoring a complaint that the man was planning to kill.

What kind of filters are there for asylum applications? Why was asylum granted in 2016 to a man already convicted in Germany for a crime in 2013? Why was no action taken when a woman warned in 2023 that this guy was threatening to kill 20 random Germans? These are the questions we should be asking, because they point to the circumstances that facilitated this crime.

This is what is important and what we should be talking about, because it is what has led to five people being killed and many others being injured. We are facing a security problem that affects millions of people, with different conditions or ways of thinking and with the same rights, including the right to have the State ensure our security.

Personally, what I'm beginning to fear, judging by the data I've seen on this case, is that if a problematic person is of a certain race, or is an immigrant or asylum seeker, the authorities look the other way, whether they are Muslim, atheist, a follower of Zoroastrianism or a Star Wars fan. Let us remember the scandal caused a few years ago by the wave of assaults on women in Germany by Arabs and North Africans, in the face of which the social democrats demonized those who denounced the events, as if combating crimes committed by these groups was something that the left considers racist.

What can be expected from those who investigate a crime is to gather evidence and data that will reveal the motive and circumstances, without establishing prior filters to adjust the final result to a certain ideological discourse. And what can be expected from the authorities and from society as a whole is that any crime is rejected with equal firmness and with the same support given to its victims.

I have already denounced here how absurd it is that the same people who lament "Islamophobia" after an Islamist attack never speak of Christianophobia after the murders of Christians at the hands of Islamists, not even when we talk about genocides like the one that Christians are suffering in Nigeria, a systematic massacre that is being shamefully silenced by many media outlets.

The "identity wars" that the left promotes are based on the idea that people only matter in terms of the group to which they belong, as long as that group is of interest to the left's ideological causes. This idea must be fought from the very foundation of our civilization, which affirms that each person is responsible for his or her actions, that no one should be condemned for the actions of others, and that we should all be treated equally before the law, whether we are Christian, Jewish, atheist or Muslim, white, black or Arab. This is what the enemies of the West want to destroy, and therefore it is also something that we should defend with all our energy.

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Photo: AP. Tribute to the victims of the Magdeburg attack, in front of the city's Cathedral.