The European student organisation AEGEE (Association des États Généraux des Étudiants de l’Europe) in Leiden, the Netherlands, organises a Symposium on “ISIS and Europe: Danger at the Border?” at the Law Faculty of Leiden University, on 29 January 2015. It will commence at 19:45 at the Kamerlingh Onnes Building in the Lorentz Hall. There will be some other speakers, including members of the (Second Chamber of the) Dutch Parliament Harry van Bommel (SP, Socialist) and Mark Verheijen (VVD, Liberal). There will be a drinks afterwards.
At the last minute (so to speak), I have been asked to act as an Introductory Speaker, as a replacement for a scholar who unfortunately had to cancel. I could not refuse even if I wanted to (due to my busy schedule), as I was a member of AEGEE in Leiden as a (MA) student during the mid-1990s.
I will get 20 to 30 minutes to present my take on the whole phenomenon of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East, an extremist-Islamist movement which controls large swatches of territority in Iraq and Syria in particular (and thus was initially known as and called ‘ISIS’, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – or ISIL, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) – and how this may affect and even endanger the peace in Europe. I will assess the situation through my own definition of terrorism: “sudden lethal violence without preceding warning of the act for whatever purpose against (groups of) unarmed or weakly armed and thereby effectively defenceless civilians, unarmed off-duty soldiers, policemen and other defenceless non-combatants”. If one applies this definition of terrorism on IS, Al-Qaeda and other arguably or undoubtedly extremist movements, it turns out that some of their acts of violence cannot be considered terrorist, while at the same time most other violent acts then certainly do constitute terrorism. If I have time, I will also talk about anti-terrorism and other policy consequences in and for Europe if one applies my definition of terrorism or one very much like it.
For questions you can approach AEGEE-Leiden’s European Committe through ec@aegee-leiden.nl. NB: entrance is free, though bookings for the required reservations are practically full.
See further www.aegee-leiden.nl.
Me (photos on the left), journalist and IS-expert Abdou Bouzerda (photo lower right), and the two Dutch parliamentarians Mark Verheijen and Harry van Bommel (photo upper right). From http://www.aegee-leiden.nl/nieuws (4/2/2015)