Conference Countering Radicalisation
Opening speech by Minister Hirsch Ballin of Justice, Conference Countering Radicalisation: Perspectives from around the globe 23 October 2007.
Esteemed guests,
I take great pleasure in welcoming you to The Hague, the city of international justice. It is an honour for our government to organise an international conference on a theme that occupies so many people in the world and that is so closely related to the raison d’être of this very building. The Peace Palace was built at the beginning of the last century and since 1913 it has been home to the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the Hague Academy for International Law, and since 1922 the Permanent Court of International Justice. In 1946, one year after the end of World War II, its doors were opened to the International Court of Justice, which succeeded the PCIJ. This palace stands for the ideal of peace and justice in the world.
To realise this ideal, we must give it our attention and our energy every day, and particularly on account of the problem that brings us together here today: extreme radicalisation, sometimes even leading to violence. The aim of this conference is to contribute to the achievement of this ideal by sharing our insights. Insights about the strategies we develop and put to use in our attempts to stop radicalisation. This brings us first of all to the question of what we mean by radicalisation.
I would choose to describe it as the process by which individuals who wish to make profound changes to society are increasingly willing to use extreme means to achieve their goals. They often start by branding those who disagree with them as heretics, they adopt increasingly extreme standpoints, they often seek to isolate themselves along with a limited group of like-minded individuals who confirm them in their thinking, and they are ultimately capable of violence or terrorist actions to achieve their ideals. Ideals of many natures. From autonomy and nationalism to rigid and intolerant interpretations of religious principles.
Obviously, there is nothing wrong with a critical attitude to life. Many of you in this room are researchers, and that is what researchers do: they take a critical view of reality and ask questions about it. Moreover, social dynamics is valuable and should be cherished. We must therefore safeguard against stigmatising idealism, a philosophy of life or religious convictions. For many people, religion is an important source of inspiration and a guideline for a rich and fruitful spiritual life. And yet we know that religion can be exploited. It can be used in a way that leads to radicalism and ultimately to the use of violence. This is what we want to examine, the subject on which we want to share our thinking during the next few days.
Today and tomorrow we will talk about how to deal with radicalisation that can lead to serious forms of aggression against innocent citizens, violence for which there is no single justification. Men and women who turn to terrorism profess to do so in the name of an ideal. They attack others who wish to practise their beliefs in a different way. They restrict their rights and impose on them obligations that deeply affect their personal lives. They define conflicts with political and socio-economic causes in ideological terms in an attempt to legitimise their misdeeds and outrageous acts, and to increase the moral pressure on their followers. At the greatest extreme, they impose on them the obligation to take the lives of people whose ideas are different.
Many people in the West believe that ideological radicalism is a recent development. But you, the experts, know better. Radical violence has a long history. Until recently, leaders and citizens in Western countries saw it primarily as something that happened far away, in other countries. They were scarcely aware of the large numbers of victims it claimed. With the attacks of September 11th 2001, extremism burst into the House of the West. Through the front door. Only then did our shared problem become visible in its full magnitude. It made many people aware of the need to study radicalisation in all its manifestations, and made them understand that our approach to it would have to be worldwide.
Ladies and gentlemen,
If the limits of the law are violated and there is the threat of violence, of course the government must take firm and clear action. The use of violence, threatening to use violence and inciting violence are unacceptable and must immediately be met by sanctions. The question is: how do we keep matters from coming to this point?
Every use of violence is preceded by radicalisation. The factors that lead to radicalisation are complex and varied. Many experts and policy makers in the countries you come from have written about this. We must share with each other our knowledge and experience about how to prevent the use of violence. At what point in a process of radicalisation can the choice to use violence still be effectively averted? What signals do we need to respond to? And what is the most productive reaction? Isolation or dialogue? Understanding or rejection? How to respond to intolerance, to withdrawal into a private circle, to the imposition on others of strict rules to live by, when it is not linked to the use of violence? When people choose to isolate themselves, how do you break down the barriers? When is intolerance towards people who think differently a signal for governments or other actors to take steps, and in what form are steps then effective? What measures strengthen a person’s sense of being victimised, a need to take radical and violent action?
We must in any case safeguard against oversimplification in our reasoning and our statements.
For example: socio-economic deprivation or the absence of political participation can lead to radicalisation, but it is going too far to view this as a causal relationship. It is striking that people who have become radical have often enjoyed a good education in the West, and have led comfortable lives. Some young people become radical in groups under the influence of a charismatic leader, others through self-study in closed circles.
In the West, their hatred feeds on events taking place in parts of the world thousands of miles away. Events that, thanks to the rapid dissemination of news nowadays, become known immediately, whereas a few decades ago they would scarcely have been noticed. The internet plays a role of growing importance. Cyberspace is the battlefield. A computer and a provider are all you need to take part in the battle, the keyboard is your weapon. Radical thoughts are disseminated, solidarity is bred, methods of combat are shared via internet.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I have attempted to outline in a few words the contours of the problem that concerns you as politicians, policymakers, administrators and experts. This in the full awareness that reality is much more complex than I can sketch in a few sentences. It is up to you today and tomorrow to unravel this complexity and to arrive at clear analyses of how to deal with this problem. I call on you to concentrate your energies on strategies with which to combat radicalism, to consider success stories alongside failures, so that you can learn from each other’s methods. I encourage you to open your hearts and minds so as to learn from one another in whatever ways possible. I am convinced that, in the end, there is more that binds us than that separates us. I wish you every success in finding the ties that bind!