Munich Shooting Will Not Change Germany's Attitude to Migration

The Munich shooting spree was a result of tense atmosphere in German society, not a manifestation of international terrorism, Timofei Bordachev, Valdai Club programme director, believes. Nevertheless, both Islamists and European authorities will try to capitalize on the tragedy.

“When society lives in a state of insanity, the number of insane people grows. This atmosphere of permanent anticipation and new deaths will lead to such excesses and exacerbations in people who are mentally unstable or have manic predispositions,” Bordachev told valdaiclub.com Saturday.

On July 22 ten people were killed and sixteen injured, when an armed 18-year-old of Iranian decent opened fire in a crowded mall in Munich. Authorities said the crime was not related to terrorism and the shooter possibly had a mental disorder of depressive type.

“The number of such insanities will grow and forces that capitalize on them will try to gain maximum profit,” Bordachev said. “Islamiс radicals will point to their omnipresent influence and power, while European politicians will use it to promote their agenda and tighten the screws,” he added.

Observers compare the Munich shooter to Anders Breivik who killed 77 and wounded 319 in Norway on the same day five years ago. Bordachev believes such comparisons do not hold water.

“If Breivik manifests one of European schools of political thought, in Munich we deal with a mental condition exacerbated by particular circumstances,” he said. “If Breivik planned his heinous crimes for months, if not years, there was nothing of this kind in the case of Munich shooter.”

The Munich shooting has again raised the issue of integration of migrants from the Middle East in western societies, whose failure is widely believed to be responsible for the surge of violence in Europe. But Bordachev expects no radical changes of these policies.

“Any change of attitude to migrants requires a serious rethinking of Europe’s political philosophy and system of human rights enforcement ,” he said. “Most probably, in the future such incidents will be offset by propaganda, but nothing will be done.”

“Europe will continue to accumulate these problems within, until it implodes. And this is not likely to happen soon, as Europeans have enough patience,” Bordachev concluded.

Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.