The Name They Sign Their Hatred With

A sports hall in Nauen, Brandenburg, burned down this morning. It was being used to house refugees. Nobody was hurt, which means the people who set it alight—the "concerned citizens," as Germany’s far-right prefers to call themselves—were at least too incompetent to kill anyone this time.

What gets under my skin about the Facebook hate isn’t just the content, revolting as it is. It’s that people post it under their real names. Full name. Profile photo. Kids in the banner image. They should be deported or just shot, signed by a man who coaches youth football on weekends. Fucking Arabs. They’re bringing diseases. Germany is full! They don’t feel the need to hide. They feel righteous enough to put their names on it.

That the West—Germany included—bears some responsibility for the crises producing refugees is apparently too heavy a thought for many of these "asylum critics" to hold. That refugees aren’t parasites but people. That families, children, women and men had nothing left but to flee somewhere safer. Some people can’t grasp this. Mostly, I think, they simply won’t.