CWA # 242
Perspectives on Violence
The Bar Shooting in Germany: Just an act of a crazy individual?
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La Toya Waha
12 March 2020
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Photo Source: New York Times
Without the realization that political convictions cannot be 'cured' and that unwanted political claims by others do not go away just because we label them crazy, violence, just like the kind in Hanau, is likely to be repeated.
In February 2020, a man drove by a shisha bar in Hanau, in Germany and opened fire, killing several of the bar's guests. He then continued his deadly tour and shot at a second shisha bar in the same town. Here, too, he killed several people, leading to a death toll of nine. Finally, the perpetrator was found dead in his flat, next to another corpse, soon after identified as his mother.
At home, he had left a letter of confession and a video in which he explained the reasons for his actions. His manifesto entailed weird statements, like claims that secret services used "unknown evil mind controls". Such statements made in his manifesto have led analysts to suggest a psychological illness, turning the cold-blooded politically motivated killer into a crazy man.
Are they crazy?
Actors behind violent acts have frequently claimed to be crazy. Anders Breivik after his attack in Oslo and Utoya as much as Islamist suicide bombers or the Islamist attacker of a Berlin Christmas market. The motivation for the acts in such cases is then claimed to lie in the actor's personal background; his broken family, experiences with drugs, the lack of a father figure or a troubled childhood, leading the perpetrator to become mentally disturbed, irrational and crazy.
Claiming the craziness of such attackers is convenient. It dilutes responsibilities, it turns the unwanted into irrationality, and it allows for the attacker to be 'cured'. This tool is not new to our time, nor limited to perpetrators of violent acts. However, if we look behind the curtain of craziness, we might begin to see the political – in all its facets.
The Hanau attacker has not been part of a terrorist organization. However, he placed his act into a political context and discourse not only through his manifesto but also through the selection of his targets. The Hanau attacker built on the narrative of earlier representatives of right-wing extremism.
The Rise of Extreme Right Wing
The combination of hatred against other 'races', the references to the spread of Islamism, the hatred of feminism and the self-depiction as Incel (involuntary celibates) have been features of earlier attacker's manifesto, such as that of the attacker of a synagogue in Halle, but also the one by Breivik.
The shooter's act is political in so far as it might be understood as a part of an escalation process between different extremes, which seek to achieve mutually exclusive political aims. The rise of Extreme Right Wing (XRW) organizations, which differ from earlier right-wing organizations in their transnational outlook – both, with regard to their networks as well as to their in-group identification – has to be understood in the context of the rise of Islamism in the world. The number of right-wing organizations has significantly increased with the Islamist attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001. The connections and links between such groups have also increased since then.
While Islamist organizations relating to pan-Islamism claim to build a global caliphate, a world-wide Muslim rule, transnational Extreme Right-Wing organizations claim to protect the Western, Christian world – the white Western world – against such a spread of Islam. While there are other aspects to the political agendas of these groups, however, their clash can be understood as a struggle for power, dominance over territory, and the security and purity of race, religion and culture. Despite their shared ideological characteristics – the disrespect for the dignity of human beings, denigration of human rights, hatred for women and gender equality and the rejection of a place for women in the society beyond their reproductive role, their attempt to purify their in-group, to name just a few – their political agendas do not allow for compromises. Every attack of the one side will lead to retaliation on the other, reinforcing and 'verifying' the respective narrative of a community under attack.
The Global in the Local
The attack in Hanau has placed the global struggle into the local politics in Germany. The selection of the target – the shisha bar, a place brought to Germany and mostly frequented by migrants with a Muslim background – sought to draw the attention to the physical manifestation of the claims made by the groups: Migrants and Muslim culture have reached Germany, and they are spreading in the midst of German society.
While one could see these attacks and counterattacks by Islamists and Far-Right Extremists as a battle of extreme forces or even of crazy people, in which uninvolved civilians are drawn in as victims, this seems again to dilute the broader political issue. In the case of Hanau attack, high ranking German officials have acknowledged both the right-wing extremist background of the perpetrator as well as his craziness. And this has been important.
Polarization, escalation and democratic means of political contention
Even if the perpetrators, like the Hanau attacker, themselves were extreme and crazy, the essential question is: how many people do agree to their positions, accept such actions – and why?
In Germany alone, both right-wing extremists and Islamist networks can draw on ever-increasing support by civilians. The mobilization capacities of such extremist groups, too, have increased significantly over the years, manifesting in the recruitment of fighters for jihad elsewhere as well as locally on the one hand and the increase of violent incidents – increasingly sophisticated – related to right-wing organizations and networks on the other.
Even more, the support for some aspects of their demands and claims is not just limited to societal fringes. Particularly since the 2015 migration crisis, the polarisation of the German society on the questions of dominant culture vs multiculturalism, citizenship and loyalties, rights and duties, continuities and changes, secularity and religion, solidarity, security, and stability has propelled. The rifts are deep and go through political parties, families, and communities, and all kinds of democratic forces, too. The polarisation in these cases frequently reaches a point, where 'the other' is not considered an equal claim maker, but a crazy or irrational figure, which leads political contenders to lose the willingness and ability to listen and to engage with a political other essentially. In such situations, democratic engagement cannot happen.
While the space for democratic debates might narrow in such contexts, political claims are not likely to disappear just because they are banned from such spaces. And if the negotiation of claims and compromises cannot take place, extreme means, including violence, are taken. Without the realization that political convictions cannot be 'cured' and that unwanted political claims by others do not go away just because we label them crazy, violence, just like the kind in Hanau, is likely to be repeated.
