The Continent has done it again. Another gentle Tuesday, another soul-shattering atrocity. This time it’s a mother-and-child centre in a quiet German town, now a charnel house. Six dead. The tally is a euphonious, hellish haiku: three mothers, two children, a carer. Europa weeps. Or to be more precise, Europa’s chancelleries will issue statements, its diplomats will issue condemnations, its pundits will orchestrate special broadcasts. The cycle is as dependable as the seasons. The attacker, a 42-year-old German man with a history of mental illness and a legal firearm, was found dead at the scene. The neighbours, as is customary, were shocked: “He seemed so normal.” Ah yes, the phrase that will be chiselled onto the tombstone of the 21st century. So what’s the angle? The usual: gun control, mental health, the creeping barbarism that slumbers in the heart of civilisation. But let’s not pretend this is a surprise. We live in an age where violence has become a lingua franca. Every week, some corner of the globe produces a fresh atrocity, a new testament to humanity’s bottomless capacity for misery. The pundits will cluck their tongues. The politicians will propose motions. The social media will boil with hot takes. And then, in a fortnight, we’ll find something else to be horrified by. The cycle is eternal because we are its fuel. We are the machine that demands tragedy. And Germany, that sturdy, reliable engine of European order, is not immune. Its laws, its civility, its cultural gemütlichkeit, all are paper shields against the rage of a single man with a semi-automatic. But perhaps the real horror is this: we know the script so intimately that we can predict the headlines before the bodies are cold. “Germany reels from violence.” Reeling suggests motion. But we are not reeling. We are standing perfectly still, watching the same accident play out again and again. And we will continue to watch. Because there is always gin. And gin does not care. It is pure, indifferent salvation. And so I raise a glass to the six. To the mothers. To the children. To the carer who died trying to shield them. I drink to your memory and to the certain knowledge that this will happen again. And again. And again.
Until we decide to break the cycle, we are all complicit. But breaking cycles requires action, not merely astonishment. And action, as always, is in short supply. So we drink. And we write. And we pretend that this time, the words will matter.
They won’t. But we must keep writing anyway. That is the curse. That is the duty.
