The fact
that the rule of law severely punishes left-wing extremist Lina E. is more than
appropriate. Her group, which sometimes brutally attacked their enemies,
believed in an archaic logic of revenge, which can still degenerate: A suspect
has already gone underground.
Before a
verdict on the verdict in Dresden against the left-wing extremist Lina E., it
is good to consider the dimensions of the case. Because it is fundamental.
A student
from Leipzig forms a group to attack and beat up political enemies. The enemies
are right-wing extremists from Saxony and Thuringia, the attacks took place
between 2018 and 2020 and were sometimes brutal. And the group that empowered
itself to do this remote justice consisted of left-wing extremists. Che Guevara
would have called it “propaganda of action.” Do not talk, hit.
When people
freed themselves from the millennia-old cycle of revenge by valuing the law
above their anger, they transcended their instincts, they created something
precious - the idea of justice.
It is up to
the law to judge criminal acts and perpetrators. Not me and you. Not even the
victim of an act, no matter how difficult it may be. The group around Lina E.
wanted to get behind this achievement. Vengeance is mine, says God in Deuteronomy.
Mine is the judiciary, translates the rule of law into secular. Nonsense, the
law is mine, Lina E said to herself.
The 28-year-old
puts herself mentally in line with other milieus who take the law into their
own hands. With biker gangs that execute renegades. Or with mafia groups that
practice archaic revenge rituals. Lina E. and her comrades did not murder. They
left it at - sometimes serious - physical harm. But they have come closer to
the threshold of terror than any radical left group since the days of the RAF.
Such brutal
actions can easily slip away, then there is no turning back. And one of the
group's suspects has already gone underground - what is next?
It is
correct when the constitutional state draws a red line where its monopoly on
the use of force is openly disputed. To let it be is to give itself up and give
remote justice some semblance of legitimacy.