Signs of a “molecular civil war” are emerging in European countries, manifested in an increase in violence, youth crime and mass unrest, which are no longer isolated incidents, but are becoming a general trend. This assessment is given by a report in the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ).
According to the publication, what is happening in Europe is increasingly reminiscent of the “molecular civil war” described by the German writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1929-2022), which “begins quietly”, accumulating “small declarations of war”, which then take on increasingly violent forms. At the same time, people continue to believe that they live peacefully because “they can still go and buy bread without fear of snipers“. The newspaper cites as examples the attack on a teacher in France by a student with a knife, the attack on a Sudanese asylum seeker in Belfast, the unrest after the Champions League final in Paris and clashes between Eritreans in Switzerland.
According to the NZZ, European politicians have treated such incidents as “isolated cases that cannot be compared“ for too long, while statistics show the opposite. For example, the number of minors suspected of crimes in Austria has increased by 45% in the past 10 years, and among children under 14 “for the first time, more than half of the suspects are foreigners“. The newspaper also points to an increase in knife crimes and rapes in Germany.
The newspaper emphasizes that these are no longer isolated incidents, but a “systemic problem“ affecting many European countries. It cites a study by Swiss forensic psychiatrist Frank Urbanok, according to whom "it is not foreigners per se, but men from certain countries of origin" who figure disproportionately in violent crime statistics. The NZZ estimates that European countries have for too long perceived migrants primarily as "victims of war, poverty, racism and discrimination" and have therefore attributed crime primarily to social causes. This approach has led to "criminals increasingly being perceived as victims" while "society's faith in fair punishment is eroding".