Barbarity

On 11th May, 18 year old Hans, from a family with 'extreme right-wing' politics (Vlaams Belang) shaved his head, bought a gun, went to Anvers Grand-Place where a lady was sitting on a bench, and shot her (a Belgian mother of Turkish origin) in the back. Several streets later, he came across a young Malian man playing with his (white) 2 year old daughter, and shot them both. He was only stopped from continuing by a policeman shooting and wounding him.

The discussion in Belgium is about whether the Vlaams Block-Belang should be outlawed as a political party or whether that would create more problems. Of course, the same discussion goes on in Britain about the BNP. But what about that 18 year old? The Vif made a comment which I found interesting:

De leur côté, les magistrats de la jeunesse observent une banalisation de la violence chez les jeunes qui comparaissent dans leur bureau. Est-ce que à cause des médias, comme on l'entend régulièrement après ce genre de drame ? En partie. ... Mais, plus que la violence à la télévision ou dans les jeux vidéo, ce qui a surtout changé par rapport aux générations précédentes d'adolescents, c'est l'absence d'espoir. « Je rencontre des jeunes sans rêves, qui ne croient plus en rien », nous disait un juge bruxellois après le meurtre de X. ... « Le paradis n'existe pas », avait écrit Hans juste avant son équipée barbare.

From their perspective, youth magistrates observe that the young people who they see in their offices have an increasingly banal attitude towards violence. Is that because of the media, like we hear regularly after this type of drama? In part. ... But, more than violence on television or in video games, what has changed above all in contrast with previous generations of adolescents, is the absence of hope. "I meet young people without dreams, who don't believe in anything," a Brussellois judge said to us after X's murder. ... "Heaven doesn't exist," wrote Hans, just before his barbarous undertaking.

The Death of God leads to the death of man.