Breaking : possible terror attack in Berlin

[MagicMary1]

twitter.com/ap/status/810931083944534016

This is so sad.

Whilst IS like to claim any likely atrocity as their own, until someone is arrested, charged and convicted, we simply don't know who actually was behind this attack.

The Pakistani refugee was released because there was no forensic (blood or gunpowder) evidence on him. It's not a conspiracy, despite what some people are insinuating. German law says people have to be released in 24 hours if there is no evidence. Being a refugee is not evidence.

This may be an IS attack, it may not be. We simply don't know yet.

annandale - You are trying to hijack this thread for your friends on the Trump one. You have deliberately sought me out on here in order to harass me. Someone upthread used the term 'handwringing liberals' and that was my position on FGM. I stated over and over again that although there are laws in place nothing much can be done*.

"There is a glancing comment to the need to enforce physical examination of children, which from your other comments on the big thread you seemed to suggest should be made compulsory." Not suggested by me or anyone else. This might be your friends the howlers who were asking if examination should be done.

Now stop following me around, stop putting words into my mouth which your goady friends have put you up to do. Your friend was given a formal warning by MN, just live with it.

Kitten I thought in th UK we have new terror laws to hold people for longer? Not saying he should have been if found innocent but its surprising if they still have 24 hour rule?

Garden Universities need looking at, and yes everything should be open to talk and criticism.

I don't believe they have corresponding terror laws which extend the time someone might be held without evidence Elf.

Interesting article on this sort of attack and measures taken to try and prevent one in the UK on the BBC website here:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36806691

It talks about an 81-page document available for event organisers on how to minimise the risks and also how architecture and landscaping is already used at high-profile sites.

Merkel Government Still in Denial
by Vijeta Uniyal

in today's www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9608/merkel-germany-denial

• Islamic State took responsibility for the December 19 Berlin truck-ramming attack that killed 12 people, similar to the July 14 attack in the French city of Nice, and countless car-rammings in Israel. Now Europeans feel what Israelis live with every day.

• This month, the police union in the German state of Thuringia issued an open letter to the state's Interior Minister, describing the crumbling law-and-order situation amid the rising migrant crime: "[You] are abandoning us completely helpless to a superior force... But what changes? Nothing. One instead gets a sense of uninterest."

• Meanwhile, representatives of Arab community were reported telling the police in Ruhr, "The police will not win a war with us because we are too many."

• Chancellor Merkel, Germany's ruling elites and the media can continue putting a happy face on uncontrolled mass-migration from Arab and Muslim lands, or suppress news reporting on rising migrant crime, but they cannot wish away the country's deteriorating law and order situation.

• It should be evident to even a casual observer that her government still does not care about the victims of its own failed "refugee" policy.

Terrorist suspects can be held for up to 28 days without charge, elf justice.org.uk/pre-charge-detention-terrorism-cases/

SouthallGirl interesting post, and thanks all, this is a great thread. A reason for the ' happy face on uncontrolled mass-migration from Arab and Muslim land' is Alternative fur Deutschland, Britain First, and the Front Nationale. In our position, what else could you do, apart from get some advice from the Israelis, who have experience in surviving not only a state of permanent siege and attack, but recent mass immigration including from Russian and Ethiopian Jews.

Doesn't move the discussion on much from previous post, either this is true: that refugees have been 'weaponised'
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russia-and-syria-weaponising-refugee-crisis-to-destabilise-europe-nato-commander-claims-a6909241.html
Or, getting rid of Daesh is imperative survival and the immigration crisis is necessary collateral, even if the fascistic right gain power as a result.

I don't know the answer.

They're now looking for a Tunisian asylum seeker who's ID was found in the lorry.

I can only see these types of attacks increasing unfortunately, as this extremist cancer spreads via the internet. They'll happily blow up their own kids in the name of their sick twisted ideology, never mind strangers.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4054312/Jihadi-parents-teach-young-daughters-suicide-bombers-kiss-goodbye-startling-footage-shortly-seven-year-old-walked-Damascus-police-station-blown-remote-detonator.html

Hard to believe we're the same species sometimes.

Meanwhile Schulz is trotting out the usual tripe whilst waving the German flag and lighting candles.

“We must stand firmly behind the values that underpin our nations: freedom, democracy and the rule of law. These are the values that terrorists despise and that they try so hard to destroy. We must not and shall not bow,”

It doesn't much feel like our freedoms are being upheld when we can't visit attractions, go out for dinner or walk down the street without the threat of being killed.

news.sky.com/story/berlin-attack-tunisian-man-identified-as-suspect-from-truck-documents-10703902

why would you take your documents if you were going to do something like this?! But sadly it was obvious (admittedly not to believer ) that it would be some brainwashed youth posing as a refugee.

The actual refugees, like the brave men who turned in the terrorist who asked if he could crash with them, must be devastated at the effect this is going to have.

That's just meaningless politician bollocks. They know they can come over to Europe and do whatever they like because we place such a premium on human rights! Conversely they actively seek to destroy them.

"The first problem with integration is that the larger the diaspora community is in an area, the more difficult it becomes to integrate with the host culture. There's no need to learn the host language if you live in an area where every one speaks yours. There's no need to mix with the host citizens if your community is large enough to provide jobs for you in a climate where your home culture holds sway. "

Werkzallhourz beat me to it, but... this. You can't talk about "immigration numbers" and "integration" as though they were separate issues, because the two tend to influence one another.

If I'm Vietnamese and I move to Poland and there are few other Vietnamese-diaspora people there, I will have no choice other to integrate to a large extent--learn the language, become au fait with the culture and so on. My children are likely to identify strongly as Polish rather than Vietnamese.

If Poland has a big Vietnamese diaspora, on the other hand, it's easier for me to move to Poland without integrating all that much. Most immigrants aren't saints or villains--they're just plain human. Integrating can be hard work and you always feel like you are losing a bit of yourself. If your surroundings make it easy not to integrate, you won't integrate as much.

Meanwhile, the fact that it is now possible to move to Poland as a Vietnamese while retaining much of your culture and way of life makes immigration more attractive to Vietnamese--they will probably immigrate in larger numbers. Resulting in a still larger diaspora, which in turn will make it possible to survive with even less integration. And so on.

Paul Collier talked about this in "Exodus"--as he said, the general rule of immigration is that (if left to itself and assuming that circumstances do not change drastically), it tends to accelerate over time, for the above reasons.

You can see it in every interview with refugees hoping to come to Europe. There was an article the other day about a man hoping to bring his wife and kids here, at which point they want to move to a part of Germany with a big Muslim population. Wholly understandable on an individual level. Not so great for the host country as a whole, once levels get to a certain point.

It's amazing isn't it? All these terrorists leaving their identity documents all over the place. They must be very careless.

Hard to believe we're the same species sometimes

Has anyone rocked up yet to say that you're only being mean about him because he is brown and/or white men do it too?

Has anyone rocked up yet to say that you're only being mean about him because he is brown and/or white men do it too?

I believe there is an individual on another thread saying just that. You couldnt make it up, could you?

A reason for the ' happy face on uncontrolled mass-migration from Arab and Muslim land' is Alternative fur Deutschland, Britain First, and the Front Nationale.

This is so short-sighted on the part of the political classes. Again. But then the political classes of Europe have never been known for their ability to overcome their normalcy bias.

The ultimate danger here is not the anti-immigration right achieving political power within the current political systems of European countries, but pressures and tensions increasing to the point where you start to see a mass public uprising against the establishment class in a European county as a whole and a subsequent state failure.

And it is this possibility that is starting to concern me … because I can see something coming in Britain. I do a lot of canvassing in my ward and a few others (cross party) and am involved in a lot of community action so I get to hear what all sorts of different types of people think about the state of the country. Now I can only speak for the wards I know, but other activist types I know have said they have come across the same thing elsewhere: the way people talk about the political class has distinctly changed over the last year.

There is now a very strong belief that the political class not only dislikes the electorate itself, but actually works against the interests of the British people.

Rale124 touched on this earlier in the thread, but what I would add is that it isn’t just the working class that feel this way. It’s pretty much everybody I come across in my ward no matter their socio-economic or, indeed, ethnic background.

It used to be a thing where you’d always get an older chap who’d say about politicians in a jokey way: “we need to get rid of the lot of them”. But over the last few months, I am seeing people of all ages saying, in serious and sad tones, things like “this can’t carry on, you know.” People can sense a crunch time is ahead.

And the interesting thing is that concerns about mass immigration are only an aspect of it. There is a strong feeling that the country is barely being governed, never mind governed properly, and that there’s no-one in the political wings that can take over to sort it all out.

Oh I'm sure someone will be along shortly fourmummy . Terrible childhood blah blah. Although I'm not sure anyone could defend a man blowing up his 7 year old daughter, some things truly are indefensible it seems.

Werkzallhourz 'the political class not only dislikes the electorate itself, but actually works against the interests of the British people. '

What do you mean by 'political class'?
How do they 'dislike electorate'?
And what are the interests of the people?
Who do you define as British?
Who do your voters think would represent them more effectively?
Why don't they stand for election?
Why don't you stand for election?

'The ultimate danger here is not the anti-immigration right achieving political power within the current political systems of European countries, ' and US
It's already happened

Werkz - what you describe is what's known as 'benevolent racism' (there is also benevolent sexism), a set of low expectations and concomitant low-level solutions, and it has been utterly devastating for our society. It's an artificial construct, created by us. The really pernicious thing about benevolent racism is that by letting go of normal yardsticks against which we measure what we consider to be good and bad behaviour, we absolve actors from any responsibility for their own actions. Benevolent racism shifts agency from actors' actions to our own responses to that action. Given the low or no expectations, actors do not ever have to explain their bad behaviour because there is no way to measure its 'badness' - because normal rules don't apply. We think we are being benevolent - but we are not. It's a recipe for disaster.

Why did we put benevolent racism into place to begin with?

South - I don't know but I suppose that there will be many explanations. Is it 'white guilt'? Throwbacks to previous historical periods? Is it something else? I don't know. Once we recognise it, we can start to take the focus off ourselves and put it back onto the actors, which means holding the same behaviour up to the same level of scrutiny. Same laws, same expectations, same yardsticks. Benevolent racism locks people into a racism that they can't escape from hence the name. It does no-one any favours.

Hotmail124

I've written you a response, but it is very long and will derail the thread. So I am not really sure what to do. I also think it is quite identifying because to explain my perspective and those of local voters in my area, I need to talk about serious issues in the constituency where I live that are ignored by both local and national government.

Why did we put benevolent racism into place to begin with?

I think it is a legacy of Empire: a mix of old notions of noblesse oblige, white colonial superiority, and Victorian paternalism that saw everyone that wasn't British, white and middle or upper class as being a child.

Hanif Kureshi made a very fascinating comment back in the 70s where he said that when Britain lost the Empire, it reacted to that loss by remaking the Empire within the borders of Britain itself through Commonwealth immigration.

I've always thought that was a very illuminating perspective. There's lot of very strange things in the history of post-war immigration to Britain: for example, no-one knows who actually placed the original recruitment adverts for jobs in Britain in West Indian newspapers back in the 40s (because there wasn't actually any work in Britain for unskilled labourers).

So no-one in Britain was actually expecting Windrush. It just turned up, and obviously, no plans had been made for the arrivals. It was only three years postwar and there wasn't any housing, so they ended up housing the immigrants in a bomb shelter under Clapham Common.

One could argue there's a bit of an trend of unpreparedness when it comes to Britain dealing with immigration.