In the German town of Overath (North Rhine-Westphalia), this year’s Christmas market has been cancelled. The cost of protecting visitors from potential terrorist attacks exceeds the organizer’s budget. The city refuses to cover the expenses. A capitulation to Islamism.
It wasn’t long ago that Christmas markets were among the social highlights of the year. Whether in small towns or major cities – they were meeting points for friends and family, for mulled wine, sausages, and quiet conversations wrapped in winter’s cold and early darkness.
There was this special peaceful coziness. A place where community was celebrated – joyful, calm, and without fear. A tradition that brought people closer together.
What would urban life be without safe and regular gatherings in public spaces? A wasteland. A dystopia.
These moments – when people could pause, breathe, and let the soul drift for a moment – have become scarce in Germany’s public life. Since 2015, since Angela Merkel’s open-border decision, Europe has entered its own Michel Houellebecq moment.
The mass influx of young men from predominantly Islamic countries has deeply shattered the population’s sense of security.
And in this increasingly tense atmosphere, just when Chancellor Friedrich Merz touched a sore point by speaking about the changing face of cities, a manufactured storm of outrage erupted against him.
Even after deadly Islamist attacks – Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz in 2016 with 12 victims, the Solingen festival stabbing in 2023 with three dead, or the bombing plot at the Magdeburg Christmas market last year – Germany still refuses to confront militant Islam pressing into Europe.
The aggressive rejection of any criticism within Islamic circles points to the core problem: Islam never passed through the crucible of Enlightenment like Christianity did. Christianity’s claws were cut – and what remained was woven into the psychological fabric of modernity.
The list of Islamist attacks in Germany and Europe is long and growing month by month. And it proves how intimidation of secular Western society has become successful – when even traditional festivals like Christmas markets are only possible behind heavy police presence and concrete barriers to stop jihadist vehicle attacks.
The feeling of carefree celebration is gone.
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