Modena: 100 km/h, a knife, eight injured – and the usual tranquilizer.

Modena, Saturday afternoon, May 16, 2026. A gray Citroën C3 plows through the Via Emilia at around 100 km/h, plows through a line of pedestrians like bowling pins, and finally smashes into a shop window. Eight people are injured, four of them seriously, two critically. A 55-year-old woman has both legs amputated – the real ones, not the metaphorical ones. The 31-year-old driver gets out, pulls out a knife, and stabs a passerby who tries to stop him. He is arrested by four citizens, two of whom have foreign passports. Three hours later, the reassuring voice of the Italian authorities: No terrorism. Just psychological. Please move along.

If you get the impression that all the European headlines of recent years sound somehow the same – that's not because of your memory. It's because of the script.

The facts before the reassurance pill arrives
The man's name is Salim El Koudri, 31, born in Seriate, an Italian citizen of Moroccan origin, residing in Ravarino, holds a bachelor's degree in economics, and is unemployed. He is expected to be in [location omitted] until 2024. Treatment at the Center for Mental Health in Castelfranco EmiliaIn 2022, he was placed on the radar of psychiatry due to "schizoid disorders," after which, according to Prefect Triolo, he "disappeared from the radar." Sober. No drugs in his system. No criminal record. The charge is... Strage – Massacre – plus grievous bodily harmHis explanation during questioning: He had "felt bullied".

Eight people. A car. A knife. Because of bullying.

The reflex that everyone can now recite.
The order is so meticulously planned that you could pause the press conferences with the sound off and still recite them in time. First hour: Horrific tragedy. Second hour: Courageous citizens. Third hour: Trace of international terrorism is "likely ruled out." Fourth hour: Mentally unstable, schizoid background, unemployment. Fifth hour: Isolated incident. Sixth hour: Whataboutism about traffic fatalities. Seventh hour: Minute of silence.

The logic behind it is foolproof. Anyone who drives into a pedestrian zone with a knife and a ton of metal is obviously not all there. This tautology is transformed with the stroke of a pen into a diagnosis, the diagnosis into a criterion for exclusion, and the criterion for exclusion into a pacifier for the public. The head of the police union, Felice Pianese, puts it more bluntly: "What happened in Modena today, based on the manner in which it was carried out, is extremely consistent with a terrorist attack." By the fourth hour, this statement had already disappeared.

The European screenplay
Nice 2016, 86 dead on the Promenade des Anglais. Berlin Christmas market, same year, twelve dead. Barcelona 2017. Stockholm 2017. London 2017. Leipzig, May 4, 2026: two dead, over 20 injured. Modena, May 16, 2026. The method has become so generic that it already has its own explanation in the relevant Telegram channels. Car. Pedestrian zone. Acceleration. Knife for afterward. No explosives, no cell, no logistics, no case numbers. Insurance and a driver's license are all that's needed.

In the EUdSSR, the continent that passes a resolution for every instance of self-inflicted fire, they then talk about "new risk scenarios" and "emulation risks." The latest report from the Italian intelligence service speaks of a "fascination with violence" and a "progressive desensitization to content on mainstream social media platforms"—two terms that sound as if a sociology intern had searched their glossary for the word "attack" and couldn't find it.

The comfort diagnosis
No one disputes that El Koudri was clinically unstable. However, instability is not the opposite of ideology, but often its most effective vehicle. Whoever governs this country—any country in Europe—has an interest in ensuring the word "terror" is never uttered, because every instance of "terror" demands consequences—and every consequence costs voters. A "mental illness," on the other hand, requires nothing more than a statement from the Prime Minister, a phone call from the Quirinal Palace, a sea of ​​candles at the scene of the crime, and three talk shows. Then a minute of silence. Then the next delivery.

Ravarino, the detail that nobody links to
A footnote to this story is so shamefully omitted from most German and Swiss news reports that one almost feels like applauding. In February 2026, someone laid out fake sticks of dynamite at the former Cinema Cristallo in Ravarino, the planned location of the new Islamic cultural center Al Wahda – with a note next to it, in Arabic: “Be careful.” Ravarino is 15 kilometers from Modena. Salim El Koudri lives there. No one is claiming a connection. However, it's worth noting that the Bologna anti-terrorism prosecutor's office is now confiscating his electronic devices, tracing his contacts, and investigating his... Meta can analyze blocked social media accounts —and simultaneously speaks of "ruled-out radicalization." Both sentences appear in the same press release. That's what you call investigative security.

The dirty equation
What remains is a continent that allows for every diagnosis except the one obvious one: traffic accident. Desperate act. Consequence of bullying. Burnout. Isolated incident. "Individual act." "Psychiatric episode." Only "pattern" must not be uttered. Pattern is the word that ruins election results. A woman without legs, a man with stab wounds to the back of his head, a cinema slated to become a mosque, a sober economics graduate with a Citroën C3 and foaming at the mouth. This is not an isolated incident—this is Europe's weekend. Four courageous citizens, two of them foreign passport holders, did in Modena within 30 seconds what the state has refused to acknowledge for ten years.

Europe imports population, exports responsibility – and calls it "integration"! Three hours for the act, three weeks for mourning, three years for the commission of inquiry – and in the end, three lines in the intelligence report about "emulation risks"! Anyone who administers an entire continent with a blanket diagnosis of "mentally unstable" shouldn't be surprised when that diagnosis eventually applies to the administration itself – and then calls that "reform"!