The Return of the Red Army Faction?
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The Berlin Hauptbahnhof; where a bomb disposal crew recently defused a petrol bomb apparently left by left-wing extremists, an attack eerily similar to the attacks by the Red Army Faction / Baader-Meinhof Gang 40 years ago.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011 – Berlin. The discovery and defusing of a bomb planted in Berlin’s main train station yesterday, the third bomb in a row created apparently by left-wing extremists, unexpectedly sent shivers down my spine. A leftist group called “Hekla Reception Committee — Initiative for more Eruptions in Society ” has claimed responsibility, saying the bombs are in response to Germany’s role in the Afghanistan war and as an arms exporter (the name is a reference to the Icelandic volcano that caused so much havoc on European travel recently.
Having studied Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof Gang for 15 years, I am well acquainted with the desire to compare every single bombing or terrorist act to those committed during Germany’s own “War on Terror” in the 1970s. It’s a somewhat natural instinct, but it inevitably is a non-illuminative task; the differences are often more profound than the similarities yet it become very easy to ignore those differences and focus exclusively on the parallels.