Speech closing ceremony honours class 'Terrorism: causes and consequences' 2007

Bij gebrek aan bruikbaarder materiaal een speech die ik gaf ter afsluiting van de honours class 'Terrorism: causes and consequences'.

I think I am justified in saying that few phenomena are such topical and relevant subjects while at the same time of all days and ages, as terrorism. Of course the tragic events of 9-11 2001 have contributed immensely to the attention it nowadays receives in the media, on the political agenda and of course in the articles and books of scholars. Leiden University could not lag behind: a professor specialized in terrorism and counter terrorism has been appointed and an honours class about the causes and consequences of terrorism has been organized, the closing ceremony of which we celebrate today.

First of all let me stress that this honours class was extremely valuable. The formula of attending a lectures by leading scholars in the field of terrorism and even more importantly to be able to extensively discuss their work with them is unique and to me unprecedented.

Allow me to share with you some insights the twelve participating students gained from this specific honours class. I will try to elaborate on the value of the sessions by briefly touching upon three crosscutting lessons that to me represent the core of what we’ve learned.

In my opinion there were three central themes or crosscutting lessons if you will throughout the sessions:

First, when studying a phenomenon like terrorism – which comes in all different forms and variations – various methods can be applied to try and understand it in scientific manner. We have had a range of scholars applying different methods. One of them was Todd Sandler, an economist who studies terrorism from a very theoretical rational choice approach. Another one was Rosanne Rutten whose in-depth study of freedom fighters in the Philippines was carefully documented through numerous interpretative interviews.
Then there was Frank Buijs, a political scientist who has written a book about home - grown terrorists, in his case mainly the Hofstad group in the Netherlands. He studies these terrorists or potential terrorists on an individual level, thoroughly investigating what motivates them to radicalise and turn to a violent interpretation of Islam in a Western society.
We’ve also had as guest lecturer, Marc Sageman, a clinical psychiatrist who has written the critically acclaimed book Understanding terror networks. He also studies home grown terrorists but through a network approach rather than an individual approach. He first falsified many persistent hypotheses about terrorism like the hypotheses that poverty is a cause for terrorism or that terrorists have a psychiatric disorder. Using the network approach to reconstruct the way a terrorist cell in Spain evolved he was able to explain what went wrong prior to the Madrid bombings in 2004. It turned out that during the wedding of the Moroccon crown prince, the Spanish secret service was focused on that event and was distracted from observing a group which seemed just a bunch of guys, but during the distraction of the secret service got in contact with a provider of explosives and the rest is history. Especially for scientists who desperately try to eliminate the factor of chance from of their research it is cruel to have to conclude that sometimes sheer coincidence can mean the difference between life and death.

The second theme was the contrast between a scientific approach of this topic versus a practical approach. John Mueller, a political scientist from the US almost frantically tried to convince us that the terrorist threat to the US is hugely overblown and that the huge sums of money spent on counter terrorism could be better spent. With Gijs de Vries and Uri Rosenthal we’ve had two guest lecturers that respectively were and still are professionally active in the field of counter terrorism. Former terrorism coordinator for the European Union Gijs de Vries very clearly elaborated on the practical difficulties and dilemma’s professionals in the field have to deal with on a daily basis.
Science is potentially strong because of its explanatory power. But in my opinion science can also be very weak, when it comes to formulating and executing policy, involving issues of safety and security. No matter how small the threat might be, governments and its officials working on counter terrorism prefer to be safe rather than sorry and are rarely in need of the subtle relationships science is looking for. Scientific findings are not always taken into account when other forces – often politically motivated forces – are competing with them. If there is one thing scientists, politicians and professionals agree about, it is that acts of terrorism must be prevented. How this is done and at what costs is something they tend to disagree on.

Academic debates sometimes are a luxury.

This statement automatically brings me to my third crosscutting lesson: let there be no doubt that a tension exists between upholding democracy and human rights on the one hand and providing citizens with safety and security through counter terrorism measures on the other hand. Of course it is hard to fight terrorists when they take into account none of the values democratic societies do, and democracies are seriously disadvantaged by this. But overcoming these disadvantages can have wicked effects.
Another one of our guest lecturers - former judge Emmanuel Gross from Haifa, Israel - told us that in the 1980’s an American judge of the Supreme Court visited Israel. This man told his audience about 70.000 Japanese Americans that were put in jail without any suspicion whatsoever right after Pearl Harbor was attacked. He also told the audience that such a thing would happen again. And it did happen again. As a matter of fact it is happening right at this moment. Thousands of men, women and even children are imprisoned and tortured without any official indictment, trial or legal aid. Secretly, for our safety and to protect our way of life they say.
Emmanuel Gross provided us with a well-funded argument about why and when some forms of torture might be justified in order to stop terrorists. The careful way he treated this subject deserves the utmost admiration, especially when considering the circumstances in Israel and the Middle East. We should never take democracy and the rule of law for granted. A secret service is a necessary evil for any government – including democracies – but without the necessary checks and balances democracy could easily slide into other more repressive forms of government, so Herman van Gunsteren warned us.

In conclusion terrorism, its causes and consequences are topics worthy of continuous study and discussion in an academic manner. What better way to do so than in the stimulating environment the honours classes provide.

I hereby on behalf of all students in the honours class on terrorism would like to thank Leiden University in general and in particular Frank de Zwart and Rudy Andeweg for making this series of utmost inspiring meetings possible.

I would like to thank the people in the audience for their attention and conclude with a quote that captures a quintessential aspect of both this topic and refers to the motto of this university praesidium libertatis.

It is a quote from Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United Stated of America, and a man the current American president might want to do some reading on.

‘They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security’

Thank you very much.