It was only a matter of time, sooner or later it had to happen: the first anti-Islamic attack in Europe. An act of terrorism against Islam, born not from faith, nor from its rejection, but from hatred of religion.

The Magdeburg Christmas market bomber now has a name: Taleb Al Abdulmohsen. A Saudi doctor, 50 years old, he arrived in Germany in 2006. He fled his country, seeking asylum, but over time became something else. He helped refugees to leave Islam, to break ties with their faith. A fierce and fanatical critic of Islam. “I am the biggest opponent of Islam in history,” he declared in an interview with FAZ in 2019. He was now obsessed with the idea that Germany and Europe were becoming Islamised, to the point of wanting to punish its ‘laxity’.

For decades we have seen tensions rise, accusations pile up. We were accused of being weak. Of not understanding that there was a ‘religious war’ going on and that all Muslims were somehow enemy soldiers. They said our secularism was short-sightedness and that critical thinking was renunciation. The truth is another. Responding to extremism with extremism is not strength. It is failure. Responding to violence with more violence does not defend us. It destroys us.

Neither crusades nor secularism: Europe’s strength lies in humanism

Europe is not strong when it masquerades as a defender of the Cross. The Cross, for centuries, has been more an instrument of power than a spiritual symbol. Europe’s strength lies elsewhere. It is in its ability to offer an alternative. A secular vision that knows how to reject both ‘wars of religion’ and ‘wars on religions’.
Our Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian heritage is precious because it is the humus in which humanism, modern freedom and the separation of Church and State have sprouted.

Our strength is not in crusades. It is in the fortification of our secularism, understood as pluralism and inclusion and valorisation of differences, certainly not as adherence to one tribe against another, nor to woke secularism as a hypocritical reset of differences.

If we give in to hatred against the haters, they win. All of them: extremists of every party, every colour, every faith or anti-faith. Europe must not defend itself by descending to the level of those who want to destroy it. It must rise by remaining true to itself. To its history and its future. This is our real test, this is – once again – our existential challenge.