By Paul Alexander Wolf

December 17, 2025

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After violence, something predictable happens.
Not just grief.
Something else.
How we talk changes. And when that happens, the danger doesn’t end – it multiplies…

We are entering a dangerous moment, not because violence is new, but because we are forgetting how to speak about it honestly.

When violence strikes, grief is natural. It should be honoured. But too often now, grief is rushed into explanation, explanation into blame, and blame into identity. And when that happens, something vital is lost. Responsibility drifts away from those who hold power and settles instead on ordinary people who never gave an order, never chose a target, never raised a hand.

Violence spreads without moving when innocent people are treated as responsible for crimes they did not commit.

When anger cannot reach those who decide, it looks for someone closer. Someone visible. Someone familiar. Neighbours become substitutes. Communities become stand-ins. People are made to answer for acts they did not commit, by leaders they did not choose, in conflicts they did not create.

That does not protect society from hatred. It feeds it.

A serious society depends on one simple moral rule: responsibility belongs to those who wield power, not to those who merely share a name, a faith, a background, or a place of origin.

Civilians are not governments.

Belief is not command.

Identity is not guilt.

When we forget this, violence gains a second life. Not through weapons, but through words.

This confusion is not accidental. It is convenient.

When responsibility is blurred, accountability is displaced. Blame is channelled toward visible targets – often the sitting government or whole communities – while sustained attention to prevention risks being sidelined. Political pressure intensifies, but the deeper work remains unchanged: disrupting radicalisation pathways, controlling access to weapons, and addressing security and intelligence gaps.

The undeniable truth is this: this violence would have occurred under a different government as well.

That is how injustice survives while claiming to oppose injustice.

Those who used this moment for party political advantage chose the wrong task at the wrong time.

When a community is grieving, leadership is meant to steady the ground, not test loyalties or score points. Political debate has its place, but grief is not a bargaining chip, and fear is not a campaign tool. To turn mourning into a contest of blame is to misunderstand both leadership and responsibility.

This was a time to protect people, not positions.

A time to lower the temperature, not raise it.

A time to speak with care, not calculation.

History is unforgiving to those who mistake tragedy for opportunity. Not because disagreement is forbidden, but because timing reveals intent. And when politics intrudes where conscience should lead, trust is what suffers most.

Across the world, people are now being told they must publicly condemn acts they had no role in, simply to prove they are acceptable. Others are treated with suspicion for remaining silent. In both cases, the message is the same: belonging is conditional, and fear is the price.

That is not moral seriousness. It is moral weakness.

A society that cannot distinguish between power and people will fail at both. It will fail to restrain governments, because it has lost the courage to speak precisely. And it will fail to protect citizens, because it has accepted the dangerous idea that innocence can be assigned or withdrawn by association.

History does not move forward when we abandon clarity. It circles back.

The language that turns whole communities into moral actors is the same language that makes future violence easier to justify. Once a people can be spoken of as one will, they can be treated as one target. Once guilt is widened, restraint narrows. Once identity replaces responsibility, harm becomes easier to excuse.

This is not about one nation or one conflict. It is about a habit of mind.

After violence, the duty of public speech is not to inflame grief or widen blame. It is to protect the innocent by keeping responsibility where it belongs – upward, exact, and unmistakable.

If we lose the ability to say clearly who is responsible, and who is not, then every tragedy becomes an opening for further harm. Not because people are cruel, but because clarity has been surrendered.

Violence does not begin when a blow is struck.

It begins when language stops protecting the innocent.

And when that protection is lost, no society remains as safe as it believes.