TO SEE PARIS AND DIE

In mid-summer, the frequency of terrorist attacks in France and Germany rendered an impression of another Europe almost undistinguishable from Iraq or Afghanistan where such events are a commonplace. Once the symbols of prosperity, tranquility, security, and luxury, Nice and little-known small towns of France and Germany have become new targets of terrorists. Unfortunately, the famous expression "to see Paris and die" can now be interpreted quite literally. The migration crisis has brought Europe to the verge of political and systemic crises manifested by the declining confidence in the current government and the rising popularity of the extreme right, as well as the process of disintegration led by one of the most powerful and wealthy European states, the Great Britain. The current situation is alarming since the integration of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa and the associated problems have exposed the collapse of the national security system in the Old World. Indeed, France and Germany are the most migrant countries, which have become the main victims of a series of bloody terrorist attacks within the last few weeks.

The details of the recent tragedy are well known from the media. On July 14, a large truck driven by Tunisian Mohamed Bouhlel plowed through a Bastille Day crowd gathered along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France killing 84 people and injuring 330. On 26 July, two migrants, Adel Kermish (19), a French national with Algerian roots, and Abdel Malik Petitjean (19), attacked a Catholic Church in the northern France killing the 86-year-old priest in the name of IS and took hostages. This followed the terrorist attacks occurred last year - in January 2015, the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo magazine was attacked with 12 people killed while five more people were killed after the attack to a Jewish supermarket. On June 26, 2015, Yassin Salhi beheaded his boss and pinned his severed head to a fence decorated with IS flags at a gas factory in the south-east of France. On November 13, 2015, 130 people were killed and more than 350 injured in various districts of Paris as a result of explosions and indiscriminate firing.

This summer, Germany was the target of terrorists. On July 18, a seventeen-year-old Afghani or Pakistani immigrant armed with a knife attacked the train passengers in Würzburg injuring several of them. On July 22, 18-year-old Ali David Sonboli, a German citizen of Iranian descent, shot nine people at the Olympia shopping center in Munich. On July 24, a Syrian immigrant killed a woman and injured two more people with a machete. On the night of July 25, 27-year-old native of Syria Mohammad Dalil blew himself near one of the local restaurants in Ansbach injuring 12 people. During the New Year celebrations in early January in Cologne, there were massive sexual attacks on local women on part of the migrant youth.

Similar incidents related to refugees – at least not as bloody and large scale – had already occurred both in France and in Germany before.

Virtually all the above-mentioned cases have been declared as terrorist attacks and the Islamic State, a terrorist group operating in the Middle East, has always took the responsibility for them. However, not everything is so simple. Based upon the further investigation of biographies of the criminals, some of them do not satisfy the classic image of a terrorist - a fanatical fighter for the idea and its concept of justice. The attackers who have committed terrible crimes in France and Germany had often led a secluded life, or had mental problems, used drugs and alcohol. Thus, the 18-year-old Ali David Sonboli had experienced serious problems with his fellows, who repeatedly beat him. He had planned a revenge, and had failed his exam at the college on the day of attack. Yassin Salhi, who beheaded his boss, had quarreled with his wife just before committing the crime. Mohamed Bouhlel in Nice was addicted to alcohol and drugs, had long suffered from sudden outbursts of rage, and had constantly quarreled with his wife and broken the toys of his daughter. According to Bild, the psychological examination confirmed the presence of "propensity to extremism" and the desire "to make spectacular suicide" for Mohammad Dalilah, who blew himself in Ansbach. All it very much looks like a description of the psychopaths in the US, which we periodically hear in the news - they arrange executions of people in public places - schools, supermarkets, cinemas, etc. for whatever reasons: cheating wife, bullying fellows or colleagues, depression. Nobody recognizes them as terrorists and IS militants but, nevertheless, one can easily notice the similarity of behaviors. The same is applicable to Japanese Satoshi Uematsu, who has recently killed 19 people in one of the nursing homes of Tokyo. As it turned out, Uematsu was treated in a psychiatric clinic and wanted to rid the world of people with disabilities. Similarly, many of the "European terrorists" hardly share fanatical ideology with IS but had serious pretenses against the people around them. The Islamic State has just given them an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the world, and then has successfully attributed their crimes as its own. For example, all people familiar with Bouhlel claim that he could not so quickly become a religious fanatic since he had never shown any interest in religion. But on the eve of the terrorist attack, he sent his family a lot of money.

It is, therefore, no surprise that the security services find identification of such people very difficult. At the same time, this does not relieve their responsibility for what is happening since they had received enough alarms previously. Indeed, despite their peaceful characteristics, almost all objects of attacks had – in varying degrees – drawn attention of the police before. The church in Normandy, where the terrorists killed the priest, was considered a potential target of terrorists but had not been ensured protection. Sandra Bertin, head of service in charge of the surveillance cameras in Nice, said she had been repeatedly pressed by the Interior Ministry, which tries to evade own failures. The police was well aware about one of the attackers, Adel Kermish, who had previously tried to get to Syria but was later caught at the border and returned safely back with an electronic control bracelet hanged upon his leg. Petitjean, the other attacker, had also tried to get to Syria from Turkey. Also, there was no control over Delilah, an attacker who blew himself in Ansbach, Germany, despite the conclusion of psychologists about his potential danger. The police failed to find the bomb in the hostel for refugees, where he lived during the operation. In addition, Delilah was denied refugee status in Germany but he continued to remain in the country safely. More than a year Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, a terrorist from Würzburg, had lived in the country without parents since he was 15 and without any control. It can be stated that although after the events in Cologne the German government announced tightening measures for disruptive migrants, in fact, the execution of the law takes place slowly. Immediately after the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015, the French President François Hollande had promised serious measures against the terrorists but all of them were not successful. Otherwise, there would be no tragedy in Nice.

But it will be unfair to blame only on the police and the security services. The roots of the problem lie much deeper. According to Ivan Blau, former Inspector General of the French Interior Ministry in charge of counter-terrorist activities, the national security authorities of the EU countries just do not trust each other, which greatly complicates their work. The confidence was undermined when the head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, forced European governments to accept the quota for migrant workers under the threat of financial sanctions and ignoring public opinion. Behind all this, according to Blau, lies the growing rejection of the united Europe as an anti-democratic institution.

According to the German Die Welt, the German immigration system has many loopholes that can be easily used, if desired. The French system suffers from the same disadvantages. For example, various European media had repeatedly voiced the problem that the local law enforcement agencies have with the identification of individual migrants because of their large number and the lack of documents. The number of such refugees reaches 70-80%. Even those migrants, who is subject to immediate expulsion, can still find a way to stay in the EU. Europeans are afraid of violating the rights of refugees since the law forbids deporting them back to the country of residence, if their lives are in danger. Incidentally, this is the same point that caused UK’s irritation resulting in the country’s leave of the EU. The former Prime Minister David Cameron threatened the EU in 2013 that London could withdraw from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.

However, despite all the criticism, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has become the main conduit of migrants in Europe, is not so easy to confuse. She said that the country's immigration policy would not change due to the recent terrorist attacks and that Berlin would continue to grant asylum to those fleeing from the armed conflict zones. According to Merkel, "fear is a bad adviser to a politician". A number of other German politicians think similarly. For example, Alexander Neu representing the Left at the Bundestag believes that "the refugees were left in their countries without means to survive because of the Europeans, and now we need to create conditions so that they could integrate into the German society". The official representative of the German Cabinet of Ministers Ulrike Demmer has noted that it was wrong to suspect everyone.

But there are others, such as the Bavarian Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) Horst Seehofer, who has long ago stopped admiring Merkel’s tolerant attitude towards the refugees. The number of ordinary Germans supporting the tightening of the entry rules for the immigrants is growing. It is the fear, which stimulates them to take these steps, as opposed to Chancellor Merkel. In addition, the official rhetoric and the actions of the French and German authorities led to an increase in the popularity of right-wing parties. However, there are even more radical demands. So, the Corsican separatists have threatened to raise the issue of independence from France, "if the French authorities refuse to close the fundamentalist mosque on the island".

There is a growing dissatisfaction in the EU with the policy of multiculturalism. The Czech President Milos Zeman said that all refugees, who have not received permission to stay in the European countries, needed to be deported. Otherwise, Europe faces a new wave of terrorist attacks. He calls the migration wave an "organized intervention" and believes that Merkel should revise her principles of "welcoming refugees in the EU". Mr. Zeman also believes that the establishment of a multicultural society in the Christian Europe "is a senseless idea". The British MEP David Coburn sees the roots of problem in artificial plantation of the multiculturalism: "If we forced migrants to integrate into our society, this would not have happened".

Indeed, the European society had long preferred ignorance trying to neglect the problems of migrant neighborhoods – literally, the national ghettos with high crime and unemployment rates, which had greatly expanded so far, splashing out beyond original boundaries. These are closed communities that live by their own rules. Their inhabitants prove that the multiculturalism has become just a cover for the failure of the assimilation process. It is believed that no one should be forced to integrate into the local society – this is not tolerated since it violates human rights. But in this case, however, the whole Western society is based on the same convenient sample. The tolerance of the West is manifested even in the ability of its inhabitants to laugh at themselves – such as Charly Hebdo cartoons that seem to insult others but not the Westerners. For the rest of the world, even this is a claim to universality of the western values. The migratory crisis in Europe is the best proof that a universal culture is impossible and no process of globalization can help in this case. If a multicultural society does not develop historically, gradually, as happened in modern Azerbaijan, the society is doomed to suffer from dangerous tensions, which can be easily used against the country by the third forces. The tolerance, however, can lead to the complete opposite.