Professor Helen Fenwick, Professor of Law at the University of Durham and Joint Director of the Human Rights Centre joins this programme and elucidates on current thinking about how the EU should react to the horrific Brussels bomb attacks. Some of the comments she makes on this programme are listed below.
‘The goal of the terrorists, is to produce a show of strength, by provoking attacks against Muslims which the ISIS [Daesh] propaganda machine would then use to support the idea that the West is hostile place, and thus that Muslims should join ISIS, and support the founding of a new caliphate.
‘There are other methods [apart from using extra methods], such as counter-ISIS-propaganda within the Muslim communities which is having an effect. The Press has to be careful about portraying all Muslims as being the enemy. However there do seem to be positive signs, such as the fact that a large proportion of the population of Europe does seem to realise that there is a difference between political Islam and the terrorists. The clearer we are about this, the better.
‘The EU in a way has been a silver platter to call for securitisation, the first result of which would be to seal off the borders. However, increasing security measures in Europe is expensive, and is likely to become far more so, and not every EU government may wish, or be able to do this.
‘I think it is obvious that ISIS [Daesh] did not arrive because of western involvement in the Middle East. It is part of a Salafi Islamic movement that already existed in the Middle East, before western intervention. The Muslim Brotherhood is a Salafi organisation. What western intervention did was to encourage the removal of dictators which cleared the way for the proliferation of Salafist movements. The West should have realised that promoting democracy in these countries was a mistake, because these countries were not ready for democracy, and leaving them to extremely repressive dictatorships would have been, in one sense, better. Within western Europe we can make choices about, for example, continuing to accept preachers from Saudi Arabia which promote Wahhabism, which is related to Salafism.
‘It is too early to say whether the Schengen system will collapse or not, but yes, there will be a lot of pressure on it, but I don’t think that because of what happened in Paris and Brussels that it will be disregarded.’
The radio interview contains much more information, listen to it!
