“Sense of belonging”Want to prevent lone wolf terrorism? Promote a “sense of belonging”
Why are we seeing a rash of lone-wolf terrorist attacks in Europe and especially in France, and are measures such as the burkini ban in France effective in countering them? What have we learned from the horrors of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, the murder of 130 people in and around Paris last November, the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, and the killing of an 85-year-old priest inside of a church in Normandy? How can we hope to prevent future attacks? Security can be heightened, and intelligence efforts can be redoubled, but these measure may not be sufficient. We need to change our focus, to examining these perpetrators’ “sense of belonging” rather than looking for reasons to detain or expel them because they don’t belong.
Robert F. Barsky, Vanderbilt University // Source: vanderbilt.edu
This September, as they start the school year, French children aged 14 years old and upwards are going to get lessons on how to deal with a terrorism attack on their school. Meanwhile, the debate over the ban on wearing burkinis and whether they are, in the words of France’s prime minister, “a political sign of religious proselytizing” continues.
The big question, however is this: Why are we seeing a rash of these attacks in Europe and especially in France, and are such measures effective in countering them?
What have we learned from the horrors of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, the murder of 130 people in and around Paris last November, the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, and the killing of an 85-year-old priest inside of a church in Normandy?
Examining the reactions of French authorities, we can conclude there are only limited actions that can be taken to prevent such atrocities.
Security can been heightened by extending the state of emergency that it declared last November. Intelligence efforts can be redoubled. Such efforts are raising concern about civil liberties being curtailed. But the Nice attack is also a dire warning that these measures aren’t effective as a means of protecting citizens from continued attacks.
The point is that none of the above policies could have prevented Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel and Abdelmalik Petitjean from carrying out their violent actions. Thousands if not millions of people living in Europe have similar profiles. Tunisian or Algerian descent and French citizenship are not enough to tip off authorities that a person could run over eighty-four people with a truck or slit the throat of a priest.
So how can we hope to prevent future attacks? We need to change our focus, in my opinion, to examining these perpetrators’ “sense of belonging” rather than looking for reasons to detain or expel them because they don’t belong.
A Canadian case study
A number of years ago, while working at the National Institute for Scientific Research in Montréal, I was invited to join a research team studying the integration of refugees and immigrants into Québec society.
This led me to work on research projects that looked at a broad range of questions – from why people claim refugee status to how immigrants use storytelling to talk about their displacement and assimilation into Canada.
