Will the attack on the Christmas market divide Germans over the immigration factor?
Magdeburg has been in grief since the attack that killed a nine-year-old and four-year-old boy at a Christmas market on Friday afternoon.
About 200 more people were injured when a man drove a car into a busy market in this town in eastern Gerguy.
The suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year old Saudi-born psychiatrist who has lived in Germany since 2006, faces accusations of murder and attempted murder.
Political parties across the spectrum have expressed sorrow for the victims and promised to step up security.
In a communication shared with Al Jazeera, Green Party leader Robert Habeck said he wanted the city to have “comfort, strength and confidence. “Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the incident a “terrible and senseless” act.
Nicole Anger, an MP and co-chair of the Die Linke (Left) party in Magdeburg, said the city remained calm and other people remained stunned.
“There are candlelight vigils and many moments when other people come together in solidarity. Vendors at the Christmas market, which is closed the rest of the year, give away fruits and vegetables,” he told Al Jazeera.
But while many are united in grief, tensions are growing.
Parallel to the vigils, more than 2,000 far-right supporters holding signs and chanting anti-immigration slogans gathered in the city on Saturday.
Further rallies are reportedly planned for Monday.
Anger, who was born and raised in Magdeburg, said the atmosphere reminded him of the mid-1990s, when a man was killed after far-right agitators chased a black men’s organization through the city in what is now It is known as Himmelfahrtskrawalle, or the Ascension of Magdeburg. Unrest.
“Right now, young people and other people of immigrant background are afraid of ending up on the streets,” he said.
The attack came as the Germans were about to close out a stormy political year.
After the collapse of the Scholz-led coalition in November, the chancellor held a vote of confidence in mid-December, triggering early elections.
Germans will go to the polls in February.
Meanwhile, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party continues to gain political ground following its successes in this year’s regional elections.
The day before the attack, US billionaire Elon Musk stirred controversy by posting on the X social media platform he owns: “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
Observers described a sense of worry and worry, saying that a blame game over the Magdeburg attack could distract from the main issues facing the German electorate.
“We still have to be very cautious about what the attacker’s real motives were. But what is obvious is that if there is an extremist force in the political discourse which is actually not only Islamophobic but generally phobic against any foreigners, if this is articulated in this strong way as the AfD is constantly doing, it trickles down,” said Justus von Daniels, editor of the German publication Correctiv, which in January broke the news of a meeting between the AfD and neo-Nazi activists to discuss a migrant deportation “master plan”.
According to him, the way in which Germany is acting lately in terms of strengthening security will be revealing.
As the elections approach, political parties deserve to avoid banking on the AfD’s anti-immigration rhetoric and focus on the problems facing the electorate, von Daniels said.
“The economy plays a role in these elections and a case like Magdeburg shifts public discourse towards migration factors. “If the AfD tries to push the migration factor further, I am worried that other political parties will react, which is not healthy for the political debate. ”
The suspect and his imaginable motivations have intrigued the government and the public.
Al-Abdulmohsen has described himself as a former Muslim activist on social media. His messages showed contempt for Islam and right-wing ideologies. He said he sent text messages to women fleeing Saudi Arabia, but a Correctiv journalist who was in contact with him disputed this claim and reported that several women blocked him because he was “behaving in a problematic manner. ” Array Some said they felt sexually harassed through it.
Saudi Arabia said it had warned Germany of the doctor’s presence in November 2023. Germany claimed to have received the information, but in the end Al-Abdulmohsen did not appear to be a risk at the time.
Tahir Abbas, a professor of Islamophobia and political violence at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said the suspect appears to have “a bit of admiration for ethno-nationalist populist ideals. “
“I think this has the effect of more broadly aligning the motivations of this specific perpetrator with far-right practices and ideologies, in addition to women’s reparations,” she said.
“The far right is so hypernormalised across Europe and North America at the moment that there are tremendous challenges that have emerged and will continue to emerge, particularly as President Donald Trump takes the helm in the US again.”
The suspect made clear on social media his admiration for Europe’s hard-right leaders, such as the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Since the attack, the far right in Germany and across Europe has been quick to weaponise the attack to promote their antimigrant agenda, observers said.
Jorinde Schulz, an activist and member of the Left party, said that “the right can mobilize almost without obstacles. “
“For them, this attack is a stepping stone to gain more support, which is all the more disturbing since they are the ones who are going to attack people of colour in the street and intimidate political activists.”
On Sunday, police in Bremerhaven, a port city in northern Germany, detained a man who took to TikTok to threaten violence. The man is alleged to have warned he would stab any person of Arabic appearance in the city on Christmas Day, the German news agency dpa reported.