The violent attacks which took place in Paris, Nice and Vienna this month have put the “Jihadi threat” back to the forefront of the debate across Europe. The rapid escalation of events seems to confirm that there is now an urgent need to think and approach the dimension of violence with a much needed emotional distance, always difficult to find during such terrible acts. To us, hard repressive and more invasive measures – already implemented by the concerned governments but also proposed at the EU level – not only increase the polarization of the debate but might fuel frustrations, sense of exclusion and resentment from parts of our societies and eventually generate counter-productive effects. In particular, the dominant discussion in France and elsewhere as encouraged by many politicians, media but also part of the academic circle transmits a dangerous, we could call it, jihadi paranoia.
This piece does not argue that religion has absolutely nothing to do with violence, although caution here is highly recommended. Nor do we intend to justify or underestimate the threat of use of this type of violence, especially against civilians. Yet, there is nonetheless a critical point to be made about an established and quite common mis-use of the ‘Jihadism narrative’ as a response to many violent events in and beyond Europe. We believe that this piece could raise and clarify some focal points about this matter.
In particular, in our opinion, the debate is hampered by three main problems.
