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BpOn July 25, a woman was killed and at least sixteen people were injured, several seriously, when an Islamist terrorist drove a car into a Pride train in Berlin.
The perpetrator, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, was known to the police. He was known to be active in Islamist circles and had been under surveillance for some time.
During a memorial service at the Marienkirche, not far from the Brandenburg Gate, Chancellor Friedrich Mertz (CDU) declared on Sunday: “We will do everything to protect the freedom of our country and our society — everything!”
The attack sent shockwaves throughout the international Pride community and even in the clearly progressive and Pride-friendly Sweden. It is worth noting that the attack took place just over a week before the Swedish Pride movement’s planned annual Pride festival in Stockholm.
The political debate that followed the tragic terrorist attack says something about how complicated the ideological debate has become in Europe.
The Pride movement often warns of the Western new conservatism. And it is true that there are LGBTQ-hostile environments in the more extreme right-wing movements in Europe. But this does not apply to the stable democratically anchored environments we see in, for example, Fratelli d’Italia in Italy or the Sweden Democrats in Sweden. It is even the case that more Europeans with a gay or bisexual identity are seeking out the new right-wing parties because they so clearly stand up for our Western freedom when it is threatened by Islamist environments.
And this is where it becomes problematic.
The Pride movement is, after all, a distinctly left-leaning movement. In Sweden, all political parties represented in the national parliament are invited to participate in the Pride parade and various events held during the Pride festival. All except one: the Sweden Democrats.
Citing grounds that are vague, to say the least—specifically, that the socially conservative and nationalist Sweden Democrats do not respect the equal worth of all human beings—the Swedish Pride festival has consistently barred the party from participating in the festival’s events.
It is worth noting, however, that the Sweden Democrats likely do not lament their exclusion from the Pride festival all that much; over the years, it has become increasingly clear that the Pride movement no longer represents all gay and bisexual people but rather functions as a politically charged lobby group.
Yet the fact remains: Swedish conservatives are not permitted to participate in the Pride movement. This is primarily due to conservative criticism regarding unregulated mass immigration and the growing influence—evident in several Western European countries—of a form of Islam that can be quite intolerant.
Consequently, the intellectual, political, and journalistic Left struggles to deal with a terrorist attack committed against a Pride festival in the name of Islam. After all, these are precisely the kinds of events the immigration-critical Right has warned about. A greater presence of Islam and Muslims in Europe inevitably increases the risk of Islamist terrorist attacks.
And all sensible people within the democratic Right understand that not all Muslims are Islamists or terrorists. It is not a matter of condemning entire populations based on their religious affiliation. Yet, we must still be willing to consider that the more Muslims there are in Europe, the greater the potential risk that violent Islamists will also be present there.
That is why the mainstream media initially did not describe the Berlin attack as an Islamist act. Mainstream media simply tends to downplay news and information that validates the arguments of the new Right. Eventually, however, it became impossible to suppress the perpetrator’s identity and probable motives. The ensuing debate then shifted to the importance of not blaming all Muslims and to not letting the political right capitalize on what had happened.
Of course, it is true that we should not blame all Muslims for terrorist acts committed by violent Islamists. Yet, in the long run, one cannot deny that a significant presence in Europe of people who profess Islam—and who consequently often hold far more reactionary views regarding the right to express sexuality outside majority norms—also increases the risk of various forms of violence and terror directed at the LGBTQI community.
The Pride movement ought to be able to acknowledge this as well.