After the vehicle attack on the Pride parade in Berlin on Saturday, in which one person was killed and at least 16 others were injured, we quickly heard from Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide.
“I am deeply shaken by the attack in Berlin, which struck people celebrating diversity and love. My thoughts are with the victims, their families and everyone affected,” Eide writes, according to NTB.
We have heard this sentence before. We heard it after Bataclan. After Nice. After Manchester. After the Christmas market in Berlin in 2016. And after Oslo Pride in 2022, to which Eide himself now refers.
The wording changes slightly through the use of synonyms – “deeply shaken” is often replaced by “shocked” or “in mourning” – but the substance is identical: sympathy for the victims, with no mention of who carried out the attack or why.
Police have identified a 21-year-old suspect, known to the authorities as a member of Berlin’s Islamist milieu. It is not Eide’s job to investigate the case, nor should he pretend otherwise. But when a Norwegian foreign minister comments on a terrorist attack against a Pride event, carried out by someone connected to an Islamist milieu, and any reference whatsoever to the perpetrator’s background is entirely absent, it says something about the reality Norwegian politicians choose to acknowledge in public.
“Many in the LGBT+ community recognise the fear and anger. No one should have to live in fear because of their identity or whom they love,” Eide says.
That is true. It is also true that the LGBT+ community in Europe’s major cities is increasingly experiencing precisely this type of violence from a particular quarter, and that politicians such as Eide consistently refuse to say so aloud. In other words, Islam must never be mentioned publicly in a negative context; we are not to be told the truth.
No one is asking Eide to declare war on any population group or religion. What is being called for is that a foreign minister representing a country facing its own security challenges related to Islamist extremism should actually say something about what Norway and Europe are going to do differently – not merely how shaken he is on this particular occasion.
How many more times must Islamists carry out attacks like this in Europe before politicians and the authorities grasp the seriousness of the situation? When will action be taken to address this enormous problem and send Islamists back to their countries of origin?
Until something happens, “deeply shaken” is merely another cliché in a long line of them. The victims in Berlin deserve better than condolences assembled by a communications department.