Cultural enrichment descends on the parks and squares of German cities. Knives, axes, machetes, and broken bottles appear and become active. Arguments break out. Then, somehow, bloody corpses appear on the cobbles under the streetlights.

Those are some mean “arguments”!

These things just happen. There’s nothing the good burghers of the city can do about it except huddle behind barred doors with the shades drawn, hoping that the cultural enrichment spares their homes.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this editorial from the online news portal Nius:

Philippos (20) dies after beating attack: In the past, no one was dead after an “argument”

While we were sitting in the office today, doing our shopping, picking up the children from daycare or going to the gym, the machines that were keeping Philippos from Minden alive were turned off. Doctors had already declared the 20-year-old brain dead.

On the Sunday night, Philippos and a companion left Philippos’ sister’s graduation party in Bad Oeynhausen. In the spa gardens, the two boys got into “arguments” with a group of about ten men, according to the Bielefeld police. The group hit and kicked them, one of the suspects dragged Philippos away from the group and beat him so hard that he suffered severe head injuries. The attackers are said to be about the same age as the victim and of “southern” type. The police are now investigating for completed manslaughter and dangerous bodily harm.

A word is reinterpreted

More and more often, we read about such “arguments” in police reports. Once again, we are seeing how a word that actually has positive connotations is being reinterpreted to distract from the problems that come with migration. The term “argument” is omnipresent in last week’s police reports; at the same time, they read like bureaucratic migration prose.

• The Munich Federal Police Directorate writes about “arguments” that took place on an S-Bahn on Saturday evening: “A 21-year-old Syrian woman is said to have been verbally harassed by a 22-year-old from Yemen and a 25-year-old Syrian on the S-Bahn. The woman’s fiancé, a 30-year-old Afghan, intervened. When the train stopped in Lohhof, the two men are said to have pulled the Afghan out of the train and kicked and punched him on the platform. When the 30-year-old fought back, the 22-year-old from Yemen hit him on the back of the head from behind with a beer bottle he had brought with him.”
• The Central Hesse Police Headquarters reported from Giessen: “At around 2:40 p.m., several people initially engaged two men in a conversation. During the course of the conversation, an argument broke out. Suddenly, two of the 4-6 people pulled out pepper spray and a knife. A scuffle ensued, during which a 26-year-old was apparently sprayed with pepper spray. He also suffered a minor cut to his face. The attackers fled. They were all said to be black men.”
• In Berlin, the police published a wanted notice on Monday. They are looking for Rimi Manreka, who is said to have pushed a 72-year-old man from behind onto the tracks at the Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz subway station in April. In this case, too, an initial report stated that the crime had apparently been preceded by an “argument.”

An achievement of the West

What all these “arguments” have in common is that they are different from the arguments we have known in the past: Twenty years ago, in Germany, no one involved died after an argument. Civilized argument is a democratic achievement, a central component of Western culture that developed historically. People began to fight for influence with words instead of fists. In heated debates, people sometimes hit the table, but no longer hit the opponent over the head.

But now, serious stab wounds are the least that can result from an “argument”. Glass bottles, axes, knives, machetes are the weapons used in these “arguments” — not words. The Western understanding of democratic disputes has no equivalent in many of the cultures from which people migrate to Germany. The negotiation processes that Western citizens have historically fought hard for are usually barely developed in the countries of origin. The term “argument” has now become a linguistic cover for brute violence.

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