Netherlands Decides to Prevent Terrorism Before it Starts
In a move that is likely to be emulated elsewhere in Europe, and perhaps further afield, the Dutch government has decided to stop terrorism before it starts. The terrorism prevention plan includes "financing existing programs at the neighborhood and school levels for the what government sees as a 'growing problem' of the radicalization of Dutch youth, said the interior affairs minister, Guusje ter Horst," in a New York Times report on the program.
There has never been a terrorist incident in the northern European country. There have not been any terrorist attacks in the Netherlands since the 1970s. In Holland, terrorism is understood to be the outgrowth of social friction turned violent, between different national or cultural groups. In 2004, concern heightened after Theo van Gogh, a controversial and provocative filmmaker, was murdered by a young Dutch Muslim man. He was apparently moved to violent action partly because he heard denunciations of van Gogh by his clergy.
A man places flowers at the home of Dutch film maker
Theo van Gogh who was killed November 2, 2004
in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Van Gogh was well known for his outspoken
point of view and had recently produced a film about killed Dutch politician
Pim Fortuyn and a documentary on unfriendly passages in the Quran related
to women. (Michel Porro/Getty Images)
The 2004 murder revealed powerful tensions between different Dutch communities, especially recent arrivals from North African countries and those with deep roots in Holland.
Terrorism, from Exclusion to Inclusion
The Netherlands program represents a change in how both terrorists and those who would counter them view terrorism. In the 1960s and 1970s, terrorism was often seen as a pathology, or kind of madness, possessed by people who were complete outsiders (as crazy people always are). And groups themselves were likely to be separatists of a sort, as well. In the 1960s and 1970s, national liberation movements throughout the world used guerrilla and terrorist tactics to announce their autonomy. Groups like the Irish Republican Army (IRA), armed elements of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, other national liberation groups used or threatened violence to exhibit to the world how they were being denied their autonomy. Today, groups such as the Kosovo Liberation Army (an Albanian militia) in Serbia and the Tamil Tigers continue to agitate for versions of national independence.
But, just as often, today, people do not necessarily want to declare their total separation from their home societies. Extremism or violence is a way of expressing dissatisfaction at being excluded, and the desire to be included, with their differences accepted, where they live. In northern Europe, friction has developed between North African Muslim immigrants and local populations. This friction can turn explosive, as the Van Gogh murder showed, and this friction can also spread easily beyond its original starting point, since is now easy for people and information to move easily beyond their own national borders.