To think about the migrants was to think about the migrants before. To consider those heading these ways into Germany was to think of those migrants heading the other way once before. To think about the migrants of today was to think about the Jews of yesterday: a pass that cannot be avoided.

14. We’re stuck with this

14

We’re stuck with this

On 19 March 2016 Belgian police shot and arrested the Belgian-born French citizen of Moroccan ancestry who was a ringleader of the previous November’s attacks in Paris. After those attacks Salah Abdeslam had travelled to Belgium where his fingerprints were found in at least two apartments in the heavily Muslim Molenbeek area of Brussels. He was finally arrested in another residence in Molenbeek where he had been living with a local family. In the immediate aftermath of the arrest Belgian riot police had to head to the area to deal with local ‘youths’ who were hailing Abdeslam as their hero and hurling stones and bottles at the police in protest at his arrest. Three days later three suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Belgian capital. Najim Laachraoui and Ibrahim el-Barkaoui exploded their suicide vests at the departures gate of Brussels airport, while Ibrahim’s brother, Khalid el-Barkaoui, exploded his at Maelbeek Métro station, just by the headquarters of the European Commission. All three perpetrators were once again ‘locals’. Their victims included thirty-two people of a wide range of ages and nationalities.

Across the continent the traditional search for explanations began. Some blamed the attacks – carried out by Belgian nationals from the Molenbeek district – on town planning, others on a lack of ‘gentrification’ in the area. Still others blamed Belgian foreign policy, Belgian history including Belgian colonialism, or the ‘racism’ of Belgian society. After the first round of this public debate The New York Times carried an unremarkable article, pointing the finger for the attacks at various Belgian policy failures. They interviewed one Yves Goldstein, a 38-year-old child of Jewish refugees who was now a councilman in Schaerbeek and chief of staff for the minister-president of the Brussels Capital Region. He insisted that it was wrong to blame the attacks on Islam but criticised the failure of people like himself to prevent this rising ‘radicalism among youths’. He said, ‘Our cities are facing a huge problem, maybe the largest since World War II. How is it that people who were born here in Brussels, in Paris, can call heroes the people who commit violence and terror. That is the real question we’re facing.’