Dusseldorf Attacks: No Clear Evidence of Extremist Motives Thus Far
Source: Spiegel Online
An Kosovan man named as "Fatimir H." was arrested after injuring seven people in an axe attack at the main train station in Dusseldorf, Germany. Local police described the assailant as a 36 year old, suffering from mental health problems. In specific, the man has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, also having a record of high anxiety and self harm.
The police have officially ruled out the possibility of Muslim extremism. According to Spiegel Online, the attacker came to Germany in 2009 as an asylum seeker. Katie Hopkins and other anti-Muslim polemicists have seized upon reports of his Kosovan descent, given that Kosovo is a Muslim majority country.
Even so, Kosovo is one of the more secular Muslim nations, having a deeply ingrained western cultural heritage shaped by the ancient Greeks and Christianity, and having also been subject to communist rule for decades. Like other Muslim majority countries with similar histories, these factors have served to weaken the overall emphasis placed on Islam by Kosovars, despite their Ottoman past. Whilst there has been a growth in support for traditional Islam and even extremist groups more recently, there has been no overall paradigm shift. According to Pew Research data from last month, only 20% of Kosovan Muslims expressed support for the implementation of shari'a law.
With the full details of his Kosovan background in mind, it is possible that the assailant had no quasi-religious motive, which would reduce the cause to a mental health issue.
According to The Local, a brother of the assailant was reported to have become concerned when he bought an axe some days prior. When the attacker left home, his brother called the police. This is noteworthy, as it points toward the reality of self-policing within the Muslim majority communities, contrary to notions of a lack of community involvement in preventing attacks.
Hours later, another attack took place in the same locality. An unknown assailant was reported to have attacked an 80 year old man with a machete before fleeing. The attacker remains at large. Police have also stated this attack is not linked to any extremist activity.
Days before either of these incidents, came another notable murder case involving the deaths of two children in Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia. These murders were committed by one "Marcel H.", who possessed motives completely unrelated to religious extremism: being rejected by the German army and losing his internet connection. Yet despite these murders being a subject of national attention in Germany, they have failed to garner significant international media attention, unlike the incidents in Dusselforf. It is strange that potential Muslim extremist attacks resulting in injured victims, appalling as they are, appear more newsworthy than actual murders.
