Pictured above: Vienna, Austria. Photo courtesy of WikiMedia.
By Madhavi Rao ’24
Staff Writer
A mass shooting took place outside of a synagogue in Vienna, the capital city of Austria, on Nov. 2. A large crowd had gathered at the city center a few hours before the imposition of a nationwide lockdown against the coronavirus pandemic when the shooting occurred, according to Al-Jazeera. The gunman, Kujtim Fejzulai, 20, is said to have previously attempted to join the Islamic State terrorist organization, causing some leaders to believe that this was a terrorist attack.
The shooting resulted in the deaths of four people: a German university student, a North Macedonian man and a middle-aged Austrian man and woman. The assault prompted a quick response from the Vienna police, who set up roadblocks around the city. Nine minutes after the shooting began, Fejzulai was killed by the police. There has been speculation that the shooting was premeditated and carried out by a group of gunmen, but, as reported by BBC News, the Austrian police determined that Fejzulai acted alone after inspecting the mobile phone footage taken by witnesses.
Fejzulai, a citizen of both Austria and Macedonia, was arrested in 2019 and sentenced to 22 months in jail for attempting to migrate to Syria to join IS. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack without providing evidence for this claim. As reported by The New York Times, the organization has a history of falsely taking responsibility for assaults that were carried out by individuals.
Assistant Professor of International Relations and Politics Christopher Mitchell echoed this reporting. “It’s actually not uncommon for terrorist groups to take credit for attacks they were not actually involved in,” he said. “Even if it later comes out that they were not involved, they get ‘free’ publicity when their claim is reported, which helps draw attention to the group and their message.”
Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen and Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurtz have both condemned the shooting, which they describe as an attack on democracy, according to The Guardian. Kurtz expressed that the assault was “clearly an Islamist terrorist attack” in his address to the nation on Nov. 3.
“It was an attack out of hatred — hatred for our fundamental values, hatred for our way of life, hatred for our democracy in which all people have equal rights and dignity,” Kurtz stated. “We must be aware that this is not a conflict between Christians and Muslims or between Austrians and migrants. No, this is a fight between the many people who believe in peace and those few who want war.”
Chair of German and Jewish Studies at Mount Holyoke Karen Remmler described how the nature of these comments could affect the general European attitude toward migrants. “European Muslims are of course a diverse set of communities and yet they find themselves targeted after recent terrorist attacks in France and Austria, even as Muslim religious and community leaders vehemently condemn any form of violence committed by self-identified Islamist groups,” Remmler said. “When state leaders, such as Emmanuel Macron (France) or Sebastian Kurz (Austria) label the acts of terror as ‘Islamist,’ they open the gate for anti-Muslim sentiment,” she added.
Remmler elaborated that the comments themselves are not to blame; rather, the use of such comments to advance a certain narrative is. “Even as Kurz and Marcron labeled the acts of terror as ‘Islamist,’ they were also quick to condemn any acts of violence toward Muslims in their countries,” she explained. “In contrast, groups on the political right are quick to use the attacks to express their anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments and call for a renewal of nationalist values and allegiances.”
Mitchell seconded Remmler’s comments, detailing how these events might lead to policies that will disproportionately impact Europe’s Muslim population. “The greater danger, however, is that we see an increase in attention to a far-right narrative about the danger to Europe from a Muslim ‘other’ and and emphasis on an exclusionary European identity that rejects multiculturalism,” he explained. “This far-right populist trend has been an undercurrent in European politics for decades now, though such groups had seen a setback as attention had focused more on responses to the coronavirus.”
Mitchell explained that groups might use these attacks as a way of advancing their message, adding, “This will not have an immediate and direct policy effect on Europe’s Muslims, though it may lead to retaliatory violence and, in the longer run, may lead to greater electoral gains for far-right groups, which would then have policy consequences.”
