Dienstag, 23.05.2017 / 18:05 Uhr

Nach Manchester: Zeit für Wut

Von
Thomas von der Osten-Sacken

Brendan O'Neill, Herausgeber des linken Spiked-Magazines, über die Reaktionen auf die jüngste Terrorattacke in Manchester:

After every terror attack, our emotions are closely policed. Some emotions are celebrated, others demonised. Empathy – good. Grief – good. Sharing your sadness online – great. But hatred? Anger? Fury? These are bad. They are inferior forms of feeling, apparently, and must be discouraged. Because if we green-light anger about terrorism, then people will launch pogroms against Muslims, they say, or even attack Sikhs or the local Hindu-owned cornershop, because that’s how stupid we are.

Where’s the rage? If the massacre of children and their parents on a fun night out doesn’t make you feel rage, nothing will.

But there's a strong justification for hate right now. Certainly for anger. Twenty-two of our fellow citizens were killed at a pop concert. I hate that, I hate the person who did it, and I hate the ideology that underpins it. I want to destroy that ideology. I don’t feel sad, I feel apoplectic. Others will feel likewise, but they know that if they express this verboten post-terror emotion they risk being branded as architects of hate, contributors to future terrorist acts, racist. Their fury is shushed. ‘Just weep. That’s your role.’ They are turned from citizens with moral responsibilities into passive, wet-eyed performers in a pre-written play. (...)

Stop and think about how strange it is, how perverse it is, that more than 20 of our citizens have been butchered and we are basically saying: ‘Everyone calm down. Love is the answer.’ Where’s the rage? If the massacre of children and their parents on a fun night out doesn’t make you feel rage, nothing will. The terrorist has defeated you. You are dead already.