Search: “netherlands”

Luc Opdebeeck is a man with boundless energy.  He is the leader and artistic director of Formaat, a participatory theatre group in Rotterdam, an initiative I have had the honour of working alongside a bit over the past few months.  I attended a typical ‘evening’ last night and witnessed the important and groundbreaking work Formaat […]

Did you ever have one of those days where in a matter of minutes you were exposed to things that when you compared them turned out to be polar opposites?  I had one of those days today. I had traveled from The Hague to Utrecht in the Netherlands to meet with a university professor.  I […]

For some it might seem a bit odd that a person who spent three decades in intelligence, and half of that  in counter terrorism especially, might think that there is a solution other than investigation and incarceration for terrorists.  After all, terrorism is a real threat and we cannot be naive about it.  How can […]

Bill Murray is one of my favourite actors.  And one of my favourite Bill Murray films is “The Man who Knew too Little”, a spoof on a Hitchcock film where mistaken identity and the world of spycraft head off in a dangerous direction, except of course that when Bill Murray is involved comedy replaces danger. […]

When we write and talk about foreign fighters we are normally referring to the phenomenon of outsiders who travel to engage in combat in a land that is not theirs.  More specifically, at least these days, we are focused on those joining up with terrorist groups like Islamic State and Jabhat al Nusra which are […]

Muslims complain constantly that their faith is always – and unjustifiably – associated with terrorism.  Many people believe that Islam is inextricably linked to violence and right wing demagogues like the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders have called the Quran an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror. Look, we have to acknowledge that the vast majority of terrorist attacks […]