Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-23-Speech-3-151"
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"en.20021023.3.3-151"2
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"Mr President, when we consider terrorism, we find that opinions develop fast. This is true in this report too. In the past, we actually assumed that terrorism was mainly a problem that affected unstable countries rather than apparently peaceful states. We have had to review our opinions completely, because we now know that terrorism also flourishes in peaceful countries such as mine, the Netherlands – albeit not in a violent manner; terrorists are careful about this. Instead, as the Commissioner has already stated, they use the free and open society with its facilities to quietly prepare terrorist acts which they commit elsewhere. This is why the European Union and also its very peaceful Member States will need to be very much on the alert so as to fight terrorism in their own countries too.
Moreover, not all categories of citizens in the Member States will be faced with a threat of the rule of law. Sometimes it is only certain categories of citizens who are targets for extortion in our countries by fellow nationals collecting money for terrorist acts in places like northern Africa. There are certain categories of citizens in the Netherlands and in other Member States who are victims of such extortion, and we must fight for people in that position, so that the rule of law is no longer under threat for them.
The causes of terrorism are often sought in poverty. I do not actually believe that this is so. It is a well-known fact that revolutions are not staged by the extremely poor; those involved are often people of a different type. This is also the case here. Those responsible for the serious attacks were well-educated, well-to-do people who were perfectly able to fit into any developed society, including Western society, and could even have achieved high status there. The problem is often that people's most vulnerable part, their deepest convictions, are taken advantage of and that the evil seed of violent terrorism is sown in the very growth cell of the social organism. There is always a handful of people who are susceptible to this. It is not necessarily down to fundamentalism; there is a huge number of peace-loving fundamentalists. A considerable leap is required to resort to violence.
We were all shocked by the attacks on Bali. We should, in my view, make every effort to ensure that the Indonesian Government receives maximum support so that the state of Indonesia can be sufficiently strong to prevent and fight terrorism internally as much as possible."@en1
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