The attraction of the place is unbroken. It works on the good and the bad. And also to people who heard the news thousands of kilometers away. Truck attack in Manhattan – the mental cinema pulls out the images of 9/11 in seconds: the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center, the glowing crater as a huge wound in the heart of the city, the sacred promise to rebuild and not get away from terror to be defeated.
Now the sentence about the perpetrators, who are drawn back to the scene of the crime, is modified: the crime returns to the scene. The perpetrators can no longer do it, they are dead. But they find imitators with new weapons: Inland radicalized attackers from outside replace those who have entered the country, they kill with vehicles instead of airplanes.
Sayfullo Saipow has used the symbolic effect of the city
New York is a myth. Sayfullo Saipow used the symbolic effect. He didn’t drive the truck down a sidewalk in the center of his home town of Paterson, New Jersey, where he might have killed more people in a busy time. He looked for his victims a few blocks away from where the World Trade Center once dominated the skyline. What New York stands for and what constitutes its magnetism is still reflected in the origin of those killed: five Argentinians who celebrated their 30th high school anniversary with a trip, and a Belgian woman. More guests from abroad than locals.
When you consider the symbolic power of the place, the question arises: Why was New York spared for 16 years? The city was partly lucky, partly reacted to the threats correctly, although not comprehensively enough. Glück: There have been repeated attempts at a new major attack. On May 1, 2010, a Pakistani parked a van full of explosives in Times Square; the detonator failed. In May 2017, a US citizen with mental illness sped his car on the sidewalk in Times Square; it wasn’t a terrorist attack, there was still one death; only then were the barriers reinforced.
Nice, Berlin, London should have been warning enough
Prevention: Through dialogue, politicians and authorities have created a climate in which immigrant groups can talk to them and point out threats. This prevented some posting plans. Failures: Why wasn’t the Hudson River bike path better protected by barriers? Nice, Berlin, London should have been warning enough.
And then there is another serious change: President Donald Trump and his agenda, which he is following with “fake news”. The propaganda battle no longer takes place solely between symbols like New York, which resists terror without giving up the model of openness, and terrorists who attack this way of life. Trump’s populism is also having an impact. He uses the attack in New York to reinforce his manipulated representation of reality. Because entry bans for Muslims are of no use against assassins like Saipov, who have lived in the USA for years.
A new front on which open America must assert itself
New York has long since closed the gap that 9/11 tore in the skyline. 16 years later, the city remains vulnerable to new terror. Defense becomes more difficult when Trump slanders immigrants and creates a climate in which they no longer trustfully cooperate with the authorities. This is the new front on which open America must assert itself.
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