Daily Inspiration Quote by Otto Schily

Anxiety does a lot of work in Otto Schily's sentence, and it does it with bureaucratic finesse. The line is built like a security briefing designed to travel: a chain of developments ("Iran and Iraq... cooperate"; "a fundamentalist... in Tehran") that culminates in an affective verdict ("very worrisome"). That structure matters. It quietly turns geopolitical complexity into a single, legible threat narrative - the kind that makes public risk feel imminent and therefore governable.

The key rhetorical move is the double negative of certainty: "we cannot be sure that he is absolutely averse to terrorism". Schily doesn't accuse; he suspends exoneration. It's a calibrated suspicion that avoids the burden of proof while still licensing alarm. In a post-9/11 European security climate - and Schily, as Germany's interior minister, spoke from the state apparatus tasked with preempting worst cases - uncertainty itself becomes actionable intelligence. The phrase performs prudence, but it also widens the net: if you can't be sure, you prepare as if the danger is real.

There's subtext in the choice of labels. "Fundamentalist" functions less as description than as shorthand for unpredictability, a moral category that collapses policy positions into disposition. Pairing that with Iran-Iraq cooperation (historically freighted given their war) suggests a regional realignment that could outflank Western influence. The intent isn't merely to warn; it's to justify vigilance, tighter security powers, and a posture where worry is a civic duty and ambiguity is enough to mobilize the state.