"Krone" commentary

Villach – the first

Analyzed for the "Krone": Andreas Mölzer(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com)

The horror is getting closer: in Aschaffenburg, Franconia, it was a two-year-old - the same age as one of the columnist's grandsons - who was stabbed to death. In Munich these days, dozens of people were seriously injured, while a mother and her two-year-old toddler died after being rammed by an Islamist's car. And now, in his home town of Villach, fourteen-year-old Christoph(name changed by the editor), a former pupil at the grammar school where the columnist's youngest son is currently in his A-levels and his eldest grandson is in first grade, has been stabbed to death. The perpetrator was again an Islamist. And it happened in broad daylight in front of the sausage stand on Villach's main square that the children pass every day.

ON THE ONE HAND, being personally affected should not actually change the way we judge crimes and political and social problems in general.

ON THE OTHER hand, mere empathy - as valuable as it is - does not move us in the same way as the direct feeling of horror. Only then does it become crystal clear to us that tearful speeches of grief, such as those we now hear in abundance from politicians, and compulsory exercises in consternation are not enough, that something must finally be done!

For example, all those Syrians whose grounds for asylum no longer apply following the uprising in Damascus should be quickly returned to their home country. And if the legal basis for this does not exist, it must be created democratically!