years has been spent on counterterrorism
15 million dollar per hour in 15 years
since 9/11 the problem is not getting
smaller
the problem is increasing something is
not right
I work on come to tears because I feel
for the victims because of the impact on
our daily routines our freedoms our
freedoms are at stake because of some of
the measures that are taken I’ll talk
about that later what I do is try to
understand the anger and I’m going to
share some of that information with you
mind you what I do is not talk to those
people I don’t talk to the people at the
top love the else over here is Osama bin
Laden’s the cows know I talk to the
people that enter the foot soldiers
those who feel attracted in the
outskirts of Nairobi the cities like
Karachi people that feel left out people
that feel excluded that once heads
ambitions human feelings dreams fears
and then at one stage gets recruited and
then kill because of their religion
I talked to that mother in Nairobi who
told me about her son and they said I’m
preaching him non-violence not militant
moderates interpretation of Islam but he
says mother you know what happens
outside you know about the corrupted
police force that is abusive I must make
a fist murder I talked last week to that
commander of this Celica Central African
Republic who said listen we the Muslims
we’ve always been marginalized they
don’t even listen to us in Bali they
don’t share their resources with us and
then one day the Christians come and
kill us
I needed to defend myself I took up arms
Peter he says I talked to that two weeks
ago to that young boy in Maiduguri
who said listen I’m in Nigeria that
earrings is rich we’ve got all that oil
all those resources you think any of
that will ever come to us in the Lord no
it doesn’t happen Peter we are not part
of those who are in power and take the
wealth of my country as patterns in what
I see and the patterns are visible from
all the way from Indonesia by a party
into the Middle East into Africa there’s
a hopelessness people that sit and wait
for the day to go by and know that they
will never ever get an education let
alone a job before they have no access
to power political leadership and they
see that their leaders are corrupt this
patterns
so there’s exclusion this test sense the
people are not part of the in-group
they’re part of an out-group basically
for one reason only because there are a
collective they are excluded for who
they are often on a religious basis what
I see happening is that these
individuals start to reconnect from
exclusion they now go now go to
inclusiveness but they go to a
reconnection in groups like in Palestine
like in China the Eagles who oppose
their government because they feel
excluded from the Chinese reality in
political environment I see that
happening in Nigeria Boko Haram I see it
in Kenya al-shabaab individuals that
feel excluded on the basis of a common
characteristic and then now reconnect
and find friendship comradeship in a
group from excluded to include it and
then recognize each other’s pain they
recognize each other’s position from
Baghdad to Saudi Arabia from Tunisia to
our schools of Rotterdam from Kazakhstan
all the way down to Latin America where
what strikes me in all my discussions
with these people is that a lot of the
anger that I find is not about what
happens today but it’s about what
happened yesterday at first this thing
puzzled me I didn’t get it I couldn’t
understand why they won’t live for the
future why they won’t take today as the
first day of the rest of their lives why
I always referred back to what happened
to understand this we really need to
understand the way people think we think
that time is something in front of us
time is there we live we have an agenda
we have a plan for next year we plan our
careers we live the less time we have I
live longer
less time that’s exceptional the
majority of the people seven billion
people in this world look at time in a
very different manner time is something
behind them the more you live the more
you have you live longer you have more
time you build up you assemble it’s
something that you grow time it’s clever
now if that is true if time is something
that you build up the traditional roots
ancestors your parents all that becomes
important as a daily today’s reality
people feel solidarity with their
parents their grandparents and
unfinished business of the past now this
has a major impact we fail to realize
that because if they look at the past
and they look at their luggage they look
at what they have assembled and what
their parents have assemble that the
unfinished business of the past then
this is what they see don’t think that
people out there don’t know about
Western domination colonialism but the
fact that we came to Christendom to a
decade to bring them our way of life our
governance systems our national borders
the way we decided that and how we
brought culture and most of all how we
brought development because they were
obviously underdeveloped try to imagine
that tomorrow a Plane full of Chinese
will come to develop you try to imagine
how would you react that’s what we’ve
done of the last couple of hundreds of
years we’ve developed so they’re
struggling with those national borders
that we determined there are national
they struggle with the question Who am I
in terms of history self-esteem identity
why am i underdeveloped don’t think they
don’t know that when we came to Nigeria
Tanzania the Philippines that we did
accept the Muslims we didn’t you brought
Christian missionaries we brought our
education today we talked about
unlearning
we talked about a different approach to
education they already had that but we
the message is clear there you look you
act you behave like a westerner you will
be accepted
you don’t look behave or act like us and
you want at this export of our culture
our way of life our thinking our
religion our development is still
continuing today we export modernity
now the interesting thing about
modernity it’s interesting concept
it focuses on individualism market we’ve
OSD if you live with tradition in your
ancestors in the past and modernity is
about change individualism competition
opposition that that modernity doesn’t
really fit in your own perception of
your own identity
it doesn’t fit so there’s a new conflict
and the worst thing about modernity is
that it opposes both religion and
tradition it denies the value of them by
the way hundreds of years ago
we good we were there to tell them they
should be Christians missionaries today
we tell them
Corie mistake be men’s you need to be
modern not religious we try to confuse
people it works and all this confusion
and all this search for identity and all
this problem of self-esteem leads to the
attraction of religion as a new solution
to that search of identity and that
search for self-esteem religion offers a
new venue for people to find solidarity
guidance rules regulations a solid house
where people can live and that religion
might you is exported the militant
interpretation of religions is being
exported from the Gulf to all these
communities but not only from the Gulf
it’s not only develop ISM and salafism
that is exported as
solution to this problem no it comes
from the other side as well it’s called
Pentecostal charismatic backed by big
money from the United States and it
completes with Salafism and Wahhabism
remember the anti-balaka and the silica
maybe what happens in the Central
African Republic is the precursor of us
to come to happen globally in the time
to come so religion offers everything
that modernity doesn’t it offer
solidarity it so offers a house where
you can live in and it offers security
certainty rules regulation and God
now the attraction of religion is even
bigger where the corrupt regimes do not
offer the moral standards
it’s bigger where there’s no political
alternative it’s bigger for the market
competent competitive methodologies are
dominant it’s bigger since the fall of
the Berlin Wall and the bankruptcy of
the only alternative political system
that offered social responsibility it
was bankrupt it didn’t work
but there’s no more alternative to the
market system and it’s even more
attractive where conflict resolution
systems like the Jews
police are corrupt and art is functional
my taxi driver in Bunge the day before
yesterday I said listen they gave me
money to vote was this politician he
came to give me money
I voted anything from democracy that is
what democracy looks like
in many places in this world you get
so where do we find the solution I’m
going I’m not going to leave you tonight
depressed and loaded with problems
there’s a solution to this I’m going to
give you three elements of the solution
first of all this is issues trust I’m
not going to tell you a lot of news when
I tell you that there’s a trust issue
between governments and citizens not
only in Pakistan and Nigeria it’s in
many places distrust has become the
governments don’t trust their own
citizens they go through my emails they
go through my luggage they follow my
financial transactions there’s cameras
surveillance all over this trust is the
guiding principle between in the
relationship between the government and
a citizen they don’t trust me they don’t
if distrust is the guiding principle of
that relationship that that relationship
will go sour everybody who’s ever been
married knows that you discuss your
partner oops something is going wrong so
there’s an urgent need to reintroduce
trust between governments and citizens
not just in the United States but also
in Nigeria in Kenya and China secondly
and maybe even more importantly religion
offers moral compare it gives you values
if politicians want to compete they will
have to live to give moral values moral
standards in its ultimate consequence
the market modernity has no values I’m
not the first one to know that tonight
but change is in the air it was noticed
by somebody changes in the air banks are
now offering services with values you go
to a shop you find green and fair trades
apparently there’s also non fair trade
there’s a lot of non fair trade and the
consumers want products that are not
produced with child labor that do not
have components that drive conflicts
consumers want values not just in the
Netherlands all over and that change
what 911 did is in many places in the
world reduce the political landscape the
political space in which citizens can
organize themselves because
organizations are scary governments
don’t know what organizations to so they
reduce that space even the Netherlands
the subsidies for civil society have
been reduced if you reduce that space
that means the citizens find other ways
in which they organize themselves civil
society must come back on the agenda
because the majority of people do not
want humiliation the majority of people
do not want polarization do not want the
violence those voices must be
facilitators to organize themselves and
be heard urgently because only if we
allow ourselves that discomfort talking
to the angry engaging and connecting to
them only then can we solve terrorism thank you very much