I kept thinking this headline was misleading and couldn't put my finger on why - the article explains the matter adequately after all. But I still couldn't shake the feeling that the headline at...
I kept thinking this headline was misleading and couldn't put my finger on why - the article explains the matter adequately after all. But I still couldn't shake the feeling that the headline at least was pointing strongly towards islamist terrorism.
I figured it out: It's because the foreign minister said it, not the minister of interior, so that cues people to place the issue abroad. Domestic matters aren't really his domain. Then why does he weigh in though? And this is where it gets interesting. The responsible minister is Horst Seehofer, from the bavarian CSU party. Let me illustrate:
SPD: Social democrats, but they lost their strongly social vein recently. Party of the foreign minister. You'd expect them to be vocal about right-wing terrorism. Part of the govt. coalition.
CDU: Conservatives. Do not exist in Bavaria. Main party of the coalition. Merkel is a moderate member among them.
CSU: Bavarian sister party of the CDU. Notoriously hard-line conservatives, they are the main reason why the hard-line AFD doesn't quite catch on in Bavaria: They're just as bad.
That's the main things you need to know to put this statement into context: The german parliament is so fractured and clusterfucked that the best coalition we could come up with is the (previously strongly disliked) "grand coalition" of both majority parties. Imagine Democrats and Republicans having to team up because there are so many parties literally left, right and center.
I'd read this statement as another statement of dissent among the coalition. Seehofer isn't doing his job and the SPD is not happy. Unfortunately, this won't sink that crippled ship either and we're kinda stuck with what we have. The SPD has not enough backbone to quit supporting Merkel.
Also relevant how that govt formed. No one volunteered after the usual suspects couldn't form a majority. The SPD had ruled out a grand coalition before. After some other attempts failed or were sabotaged from the inside (Looking at you, Lindner), the SPD compromised a lot (on policy and principles) to get a govt going.
I kept thinking this headline was misleading and couldn't put my finger on why - the article explains the matter adequately after all. But I still couldn't shake the feeling that the headline at least was pointing strongly towards islamist terrorism.
I figured it out: It's because the foreign minister said it, not the minister of interior, so that cues people to place the issue abroad. Domestic matters aren't really his domain. Then why does he weigh in though? And this is where it gets interesting. The responsible minister is Horst Seehofer, from the bavarian CSU party. Let me illustrate:
SPD: Social democrats, but they lost their strongly social vein recently. Party of the foreign minister. You'd expect them to be vocal about right-wing terrorism. Part of the govt. coalition.
CDU: Conservatives. Do not exist in Bavaria. Main party of the coalition. Merkel is a moderate member among them.
CSU: Bavarian sister party of the CDU. Notoriously hard-line conservatives, they are the main reason why the hard-line AFD doesn't quite catch on in Bavaria: They're just as bad.
That's the main things you need to know to put this statement into context: The german parliament is so fractured and clusterfucked that the best coalition we could come up with is the (previously strongly disliked) "grand coalition" of both majority parties. Imagine Democrats and Republicans having to team up because there are so many parties literally left, right and center.
I'd read this statement as another statement of dissent among the coalition. Seehofer isn't doing his job and the SPD is not happy. Unfortunately, this won't sink that crippled ship either and we're kinda stuck with what we have. The SPD has not enough backbone to quit supporting Merkel.
Also relevant how that govt formed. No one volunteered after the usual suspects couldn't form a majority. The SPD had ruled out a grand coalition before. After some other attempts failed or were sabotaged from the inside (Looking at you, Lindner), the SPD compromised a lot (on policy and principles) to get a govt going.
Ninja: Further reading on the last bit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Merkel_cabinet and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_German_federal_election#Results