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Post 9/11: Anti-Islam Discourse on Terrorism and Its Implications on Counter-Terrorism, Human Rights and National Security in the Netherlands
Authors: Reyhan Canavar, Filiz Katman
Number of views: 242
In the aftermath of 9/11 attacks, many European governments have been dictated by a state-centric discourse on terrorism in which human rights have taken a backseat to state security. In doing so, civil liberties have been trade-off for the stake of state survival. In particular, European Muslims have been direct victim of these policies as they have been subject to repressive state practices, which are most often justified under the guise of war on terror. However, repression usually hit hard back since the ones who fall victim for those policies become more prone to take up radical thought, and thus become more willing to engage in terrorist activities, with the aim to take revenge. Consequently, in the long run, this may aggregate the threat of terrorism, and thus may pose a greater threat to the survival of the state. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to break free from a state-centric discourse on terrorism to move towards a human right framework in which terrorism and its responses are approached with all its consequences on state behavior, human security and state survival. The study consists of case-study, which is based on a qualitative research method, whereby twelve peoples were interviewed. It examined the link between counter-terrorism and human rights violations, within the Dutch context. To be more precise, it examined whether the Dutch anti-terror policies infringes on civil liberties and points out the long-term effects on the national security. The results have shown that the Dutch counter-terrorism measures are at odd with the human rights. In particular, the Dutch Muslim seems to be hit the most ever since the political debates around terrorism are dictated by an anti-Islamic political discourse. However, the securitization of the Islam has led to false security narratives, and paved way for extreme proposals to stop Islamification. In this way, the government have provided the base for radicalization within own group. Consequently, this have led to a dichotomy between Muslim and non-Muslim groups, which have crashed the togetherness of the society and and resulted in a vicious circle in which terrorism has feed itself, and with that endangered the national security even further.