Shake it off: after the foiled attack on Swifties
Austrian security authorities have announced that they have foiled an attack on one of the three Taylor Swift concerts that were cancelled in Vienna. The 19-year-old man who is the main suspect is reportedly a supporter of the IS terrorist militia. He and an accomplice were allegedly planning to kill as many people as possible outside the stadium.
Keep dancing for freedom
We must not let ourselves be intimidated, Kronen Zeitung insists:
“They want to strike us right in the heart with their bloodthirsty terror, and fuel a fear that robs us of our freedom. Fear is like a prison that imprisons us, Mahatma Gandhi once said - and that is exactly what these hate-fuelled butchers want to achieve. We must not let them triumph. Let's do as Superwoman Taylor says. In Shake It Off she sings: 'The haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, I'm just gonna shake it off'. Let's keep dancing - for freedom!”
Demonisation of fun
Pop concerts are particularly vulnerable to Islamist terror, warns Die Presse:
“Why is it that the terrorists' dreadful choice so often falls on leisure events? Because Western liberal societies clearly celebrate their life's meaning at such events more than anywhere else - fun, entertainment. ... But it is not for nothing that art and culture have been described as a substitute for religion since the start of the modern age. Their events are events of the living, of the intense moment. Exactly what Islamists demonise.”