One of the largest terrorist attacks in the history of the country took place tonight in Vienna.
While video recordings of the same or several men in white, randomly shooting people in the street, were running on social networks, police press secretary Seras, Interior Minister Nehammer and Chancellor Kurz took turns speaking from the TV screen.
Their messages boiled down to one thing: today and tomorrow everyone sits at home so as not to be exposed to danger.
And of course, not only the inhabitants of Austria, but the whole of Europe should have been pierced by the feeling of déjà vu: they had heard about “stay at home” from about March this year, when the first wave of coronavirus began.
Now the second has rolled over us: Germany went into lockdown yesterday, France even earlier, in Spain and Italy it is no longer possible to move freely between regions.
And the reaction was not long in coming.
A couple of days ago, a video was circulating on the network where citizens on a German pedestrian street threw stones at a police patrol - the cops had to shamefully run away and ask for reinforcements, as if they were not in Germany, but in some Belarus.
In Turin, Italy, at the end of October, protesters broke windows, threw bottles and smoke bombs at the police - they had to soothe them with tear gas.
In Madrid, 32 people were detained after setting fire to garbage cans and riots.
In the French Finistere (Brittany), an appeal by a businesswoman who called for the opening of shops, despite the law, spread throughout the country, and students of lyceums took to the streets (!), Protesting against the closure of their educational institutions (!!!).
For the average European, the policeman is not the enemy.
Until this year, the war with the "bulls" in Germany was the prerogative of the radical left, guys in black balaclavas.
It was they who rocked the topic of the "police state" while a respectable burgher twisted his finger to his temple and feared that his car, bought with labor money, would fall victim to the "class struggle" on the next May Day.
But the people who attacked the patrolling of the polizisten street in Frankfurt am Main did not look like leftists, but much more like those respectable burghers who were simply tired of everything.
The most striking thing about this is the difference from the first wave of coronavirus.
Then the numbers of infections were lower, but the frightened people were sympathetic to all absolutely undemocratic, and sometimes even anti-constitutional measures.
Stay home?
Okay.
Not to work?
Okay.
Transfer your personal data to the intelligence services to make it easier for them to monitor the spread of the coronavirus?
Okay, health is more expensive.
Sitting at home, shaking with horror and updating the feed with statistics, while trucks with coffins are driving along Italian streets - this is the mood of the spring of this apocalyptic year.
And then the numbers went down, but the apocalyptic mood didn't go anywhere.
BLM protests started in America, and it turned out that it is very possible to gather on the streets in large groups without masks.
Then Belarus settled on all TVs, from morning to evening they tried to impress viewers with numbers: 20 thousand, 50 thousand, 100 thousand people took to the streets of Minsk.
All of Europe saw these shots and, most likely, wondered: so what, everyone is alive?
The borders within Europe were slightly opened, the streets of Italy were full of German tourists, the new hygiene rules were understood and accepted: wearing masks, using sanitizers, not shaking hands - all these are trifles, the main thing is that trucks with corpses no longer travel.
And when the numbers crawled up again, they did not impress anyone: well, yes, again records for infections, but life goes on!
Continuing a normal life, restoring a normal economy, normal rights and freedoms, the governments of European countries said "no", and people did not understand.
The attacks on the police on the street were a gesture of despair: many for the first time saw people in uniform following orders (to wear masks, not to gather in large groups) not as defenders, but as executors of someone else's ill will.
Yesterday there was a terrorist attack in Austria - the Europeans simply could not help but see ominous parallels and ask (at least to themselves) uncomfortable questions.
Why can restrictive measures on movement be introduced against the citizens of Europe (it does not matter if they are sick or not), but nothing can be done about the Islamists who are flooding their hometowns with blood?
Why can't Hans from Bremen cross the border between Italy and Germany, and Ali from Syria - with completely different intentions - can?
Why is the patient with the "crown" isolated, and the 20-year-old supporter of ISIS *, who is known to the special services, is left free to walk?
Why does public health care work in the first case and not at all in the other?
And finally, why are terrorism and the coronavirus pandemic so similar?
* "Islamic State" (IS, ISIS) - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.