How terrorism is deforming the face of Europe, The Week
Relevant chunks: “But most frightening is the way Europe is changing after each attack. When security is threatened, liberty goes soon afterward. After the November attack in Paris, France’s own military deployed in French streets, acting as a semi-permanent guard to synagogues and other Jewish institutions. The former certainties of continental politics are also changing. The Schengen Agreement that allows Europeans free travel across EU borders, perhaps the most tangible way Europeans enjoy modern Europe’s peace, is now threatened by the upheaval from terrorism…
…Some attempts to deal with the problems caused by unassimilated migrants become a sick farce. After what seemed like a night of coordinated mass sexual assault on New Year’s Eve, Cologne Mayor Henrietta Recker, an advocate for the cause of refugee resettlement in Europe, advised women to “stick together in groups, don’t get split up, even if you’re in a party mood.” She also said that perhaps European women needed a “code of conduct” that indicates they are unavailable to be groped by strangers in the street. At the very moment when the defining feature of Western life — freedom to show one’s face in public — was temporarily occluded, a political leader was making a backhanded tribute to Sharia law, suggesting that unaccompanied or “frisky” women would meet danger.”
