Old terrorists, young terrorists, what’s it matter in the end? There will always be someone out there to show you a little understanding. Whole nations even. Hauptsache (main thing) is that you belong to that pampered and well-educated middle-class, wayward daughter/son type who have seen the error of their ways. Oder auch nicht (or haven’t).

Just go ask Brigitte Mohnhaupt or Christian Klar. Rien, je ne regrette rien. Why have any regrets? Life is short enough as it is (go ask the families of the people they killed). And their vie en rose has now gotten a whole lot rosier – and they’ll probably even be getting a chance to check out that film next week.

It’s time for a “cooler approach”, you see. At least that’s what all the cool Germans are thinking. After all, although “terrorism is a challenge for all of us,” it is something that happened a long, long, time ago, es passt nicht mehr in die Landschaft (it doesn’t fit in the scenery anymore) and “it is important to draw the line” now. Like right now.

How observant, how tolerant (putting the victim’s families aside), and how easy it is, in this age of Osama Bin Laden, to forget about how a small group of ruthless criminals “mercilessly killed wives, men and fathers with the aim of destroying our democracy”, caused civil liberties to be set aside, and created a twenty year long zeitgeist of national hysteria in Germany.

It’s easy to forget that if you are German, that is. After all, it’s not like the kind of national hysteria America is currently going through (something happened there a few years back, I forget) could ever happened here, right? One is above all of that. And to forgive is so menschlich (human), especially when you can so easily forget. And Germans, as you now know, are a very forgetful people.

Come visit me at Observing Hermann…