The organisers of the Berlin gay pride parade have doubled down on their commitment to a multicultural worldview despite having been the target of an Islamist terror attack on Saturday.
One woman was killed, and dozens were injured at the annual Christopher Street Day parade in the German capital after Lebanese-heritage 21-year-old Abdul Ballut allegedly rammed a van into attendees in an apparent Islamist-inspired terror attack. Ballut had previously been detained over his suspected support for ISIS and for seeking to join their ranks in Syria; however, he was released back onto the streets of Berlin on probation in May.
The U.S. State Department has previously warned that radical Islamists would likely seek to attack LGBT events in Europe due to their extremist ideology.
Nevertheless, the German political establishment was quick to rally around the cause of neo-liberalism and multiculturalism. This sentiment was shared by the organisers of the CSD pride parade, who said in a statement published to Instagram on Sunday:
“Nothing has changed about our attitude: We reject any form of violence. Right-wing or religious ideologies pursue the goal of suppressing queer people. We call Islamist terror clearly and without relativization.
We are equally clear about any attempt to instrumentalize the act of hatred against Muslim people of certain origin. Behind such violence is the attempt to divide our society and incite people against each other. We will not allow that. We stay loud, we don’t let ourselves be pushed back. Love is stronger than hate.”
Despite Islamic terror posing the greatest threat to German society, and of the specific threat that it poses to gay people in the country, the Berlin Pride organisers had publicly complained just days prior to the attack that they were afraid in the multicultural city due to the rising popularity of the anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Ironically, the party — which is often maligned in the German media as being “far-right”– is led by Alice Weidel, who is in a long-term lesbian relationship with a woman from Sri Lanka, and who advocates for protecting German women and homosexuals from the dangers associated with mass migration from Muslim and Third World countries.
The legacy media in Germany was also quick to attempt to link the terror attack on Saturday to the supposed dangers from the right-wing, with a correspondent for broadcaster NTV declaring shortly after the attack: “The queer community naturally feels primarily threatened by the right.
“The queer community naturally feels primarily threatened by right-wing forces – I have also heard this repeatedly today at the demonstrations, in the interviews I conducted,” she added.
The attempt to shift blame from Islam to the political right was not confined to Germany, however, with left-wing Labour MP Kate Osbourne in Britain asserting that the attack in Berlin was attributable to “escalation of hate” across Europe and the rising popularity of political parties like Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
“This is why Pride still matters and why we all need to vocally stand up for minorities and condemn the hate,” the UK lawmaker said.
Mr Farage described the comments as “dangerous, inciteful and deeply ignorant”, particularly in light of the alleged murder of former Reform UK spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe earlier this month.
“This is inciting people to believe false and dangerous ideas about Reform that may well endanger Reform politicians,” he told The Telegraph.