On New Year's, in Cologne, Germany, and possibly a few other European cities (the media aren't too clear), organized groups of men conducted robberies and assaults on citizens, and particularly women.
They intercepted party goers at the train stations, and set off fireworks and firecrackers at ground level to scatter the crowds and separate out their targets.
The Police was not ready to respond to such a large number of accidents and contain all the assailants, leaving much of the public exposed to violence.
The way this situation was and is being handled/reported on did not go well with many. Some medias are downplaying the issue, keeping it all hush, hush in attempt to keep the public calm. Others are biting onto the ethnic side of it, either to shun the culture or call for more dialogue as there is clearly a 'cultural misunderstanding' at hand. And whenever someone is talking about it, the highlight is that the men were of North African and Middle Eastern origins. Mostly though, people are too scared to kick up a shitstorm, approaching the issue with all the tools of political correctness by talking about it without saying much.
Overall, the New Years assaults are being handled with much silent stupor and ramblings on cultural differences without any definite answers or actions, while radicals on the other side scream to have the borders closed and immigrants denied.
While I tend to not speak publicly on such issues, I can't help but express my raging thoughts on the matter. And not because of the political aspect of it, but because it's 2016, and this kind of caveman behavior should have long been outgrown by humanity. People should be treated with respect no matter what, and attacking the weak, or the perceived defenseless, is an act of cowardice.
I will try to be as objective as I can, but this is an emotional issue for me and I am knowingly reacting subjectively when expressing my thoughts.
So what is the best course of action? Hell if I know. But I do think that ethnicity and background shouldn't be underlined in this case, and the issue shouldn't be conflated to some abstract world statistics of spike in sexual violence against women.
Instead, I'd like to look at it from a slightly different perspective.
Attacks against citizens are a crime, and they should be punished according to the law regardless of ethnicity and origins. The fact that the groups were made of Muslim men is an entirely different issue (which is still relevant and needs to be addressed, though elsewhere), and shouldn't be the highlight of how this particular situation is handled.
For once, it's not entirely about culture, the attackers knew what they were doing, they knew it was a crime, and now they should face the consequences of their actions. Using culture as an excuse is a cheap way to escape it, in fact, they are using culture as a weapon, exploiting loop holes and western attitudes to wreak havoc.
The media and the government response should instead focus on showing the law in action. No need to teach the attackers about cultural differences, they know, and don't care, the state must do what the state is meant to do, police its citizens without regard for their status, ethnicity or background. Justice is said to be blind.
Or at least that's how it should be in an ideal world. In ours, we have yet much to learn, and I hope we learn it fast because this situation is starting to spiral out of control and innocent people are suffering on both fronts.
A relevant and informative video on the subject of the attacks:
https://youtu.be/WJCLSZm4-LA
And on the matter of minority groups and their cultural identity:
https://youtu.be/q2s_n6St1OI
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