Much has been said and written about paths to radicalisation and how this process could be thwarted. Historically speaking, modern societies have approached radicalisation and the subsequent terrorism problem with security based measures only. From the invasion of foreign countries to the US Patriot Act and France’s infamous new surveillance bill, our democracies have failed to ask the right questions to solve a long standing problem.
Had these measures been successful, we wouldn’t have witnessed an increase in the number of terrorist attacks across Europe and North America. Yet we still naively look to governments to provide us with solutions. Twenty years after the Paris subway attacks in 1995 and fourteen years since 9/11, we are not any safer despite numerous inflammatory speeches, anti-terror laws, programmes and campaigns. At the same time, if we were to look outside our borders, we would see a correlation between our governments’ involvement in armed conflicts and the number of terrorist attacks at home.
