This article appeared in Jungle World.
Modena ist außerhalb Italiens bekannt als die Stadt, in der die berühmten Ferrari-Sportwagen gebaut werden. Doch für Italiener, vor allem für Linke, ist Modena auch die »rote Stadt«, sie war ein Zentrum des antifaschistischen Widerstands in den letzten Jahren des Zweiten Weltkriegs. (more…)
This article appeared in Solidarity.
Mass murderers, and especially those who execute children at point-blank range, are not normally objects of one’s sympathy. It is possible, I imagine, for Nazis to “understand” the motives of a mass murderer, especially one who targets Jews.
But one hardly expects the same sort of understanding or sympathy on the Left.
And yet this is precisely what we find in the latest issue of Socialist Worker.
In a full-page article following up on the Toulouse killings, Jim Wolfreys mentions in the second paragraph that Mohamed Merah’s first attacks took place on the very same day as an American soldier, Robert Bales, went on the rampage in Afghanistan.
One’s first reaction is to think — that’s a quick response by Merah to an attack on his fellow Muslims. But it wasn’t, and that’s not Wolfreys’ point at all.
His point is that “the media tried to comprehend what Bales did by reference to a breakdown brought on by injuries and trauma.”
Now that’s not strictly speaking true. (more…)