Exploiting Tragedy

Christmas isn't Christmas without some kind of tragedy for the media to exploit, be it natural disaster, man made calamity, child-related trauma or act of terror, it always seems much worse at this time of year.  Which means that the media and political opportunists can try and use it to manipulate us emotionally.  This year it's that business in Germany with the car being deliberately driven into a Christmas market, causing much loss of life and terrible injuries.  Now, I could make some flip, bad taste remark here, about how Christmas markets, with their over-priced tat, have a similar effect on me, but I won't.  Looking past the obvious human tragedy of the incident, things like this leave me with that sense of dread that they are going to be seized upon by the right as yet more fuel for their racist anti-immigrant rhetoric.  Indeed, as soon as the perpetrator was identified as a Saudi Arabian immigrant, my heart sank even further, fearing that we were about to be assailed with far right propaganda of the crudest kind.  But then it turned out that he was actually some kind of anti-Muslim crackpot himself, railing against the alleged dangers of Muslim immigration into Germany!  Just when the neo-Nazis though they had it, victory was snatched away from them!  It turned out that he was actually one of their own!

Which all goes to highlight the dangers of jumping to conclusions.  Something which applies equally to all sides in this case - after all, upon learning the guy was am immigrant and an Arab, I too immediately assumed that he was some kind of Islamic fanatic, out to kill infidels.  We are none of us free from such underlying prejudices and really should strive to be more open minded and not go by initial impressions, (particularly where these are being provided via the media with all of its own biases).  It's worth bearing in  mind that, sometimes, things aren't quite as straightforward as they might, at first, seem.  But for now, at least, this is one tragedy that the extreme right can't exploit for their own nefarious ends and we should be thankful for that.  Particularly when one bears in mind that Germany is facing a general election, which will be contested by the extreme right AfD, (Elon Musk's new best buddies), who are bound to try and use immigration as part of their scaremongering.   Obviously, none of this lessens the tragedy for the victims of this outrage - as ever, though, they tend to be reduced to secondary importance amongst all the political posturing that inevitably takes control of such incidents.