Dealing with Radicalisation: Four reflections on Flemish radicalization policy

By Jorg Kustermans

The Ministerial Committee of 25 March 2005 adopted the Radicalism Action Plan, motivated in part by the fact that several of the men who committed the attacks in Madrid had been radicalized in Belgium. Later that year, the relevance of such policy initiatives was confirmed when Muriel Degauque, a woman from Charleroi in Belgium, committed a suicide attack in Iraq. In Flanders, however, policy-makers only really focused on radicalization as a possible precursor of terrorism when it emerged, in the course of 2013, that a disproportionately high number of young Belgians had left for Syria to fight against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. This was clearly a cause for concern, only increasing as the configuration of the Syrian conflict changed and it became clear that a large number of the Flemish combatants in Syria had joined the ranks of the Islamic State. …..Municipalities had already expressed discontent earlier about the lack of a Flemish (and federal) radicalization policy. This changed with the advent of a new Government of Flanders in 2014. Minister Liesbeth Homans, who is in charge of coordinating the Flemish radicalization policy, published a concept paper. On 14 January 2015, the Flemish Parliament established a committee to combat violent radicalization, which organised five hearings with experts and organizations with relevant experience. They discussed a wide range of topics and areas of responsibility under the headings of security, education, welfare and diversity. The Committee’s work has meanwhile given rise to a draft Flemish Parliament resolution.

Brussels: Flemish Peace Institute, 2015. 23p