Denaturalize, Expel, Refuse and Never Allow Them to Enter the Netherlands Again”
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“Denaturalize, expel, refuse and never allow them to enter the Netherlands again” Dutch Jihadist Fighters in Syria and Iraq: Geopolitical Representations on the Role of Statehood in Parliamentarian and Media Debates in the Netherlands Master thesis Emi Suijk (12295256) Master program Human Geography Track: Political Geography Supervisor: Dr. Virginie Mamadouh Second assessor: Dr. Inge van der Welle 11 June 2019 2 Abstract In the era of globalization, the global political framework on modern statehood, as established in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, became increasingly challenged by forces from above and below that seem to erode state power at a national level. As a result, the statehood became redefined as a powerful entity constructed by a set of tangible and intangible political practices and linguistic performances. The fixed and permanent character of state sovereignty, territory and citizenship is extensively addressed by the academic field of geopolitics. Scholars argue that the legitimacy of the state and enforcing political authority is framed by linguistic constructions on national value systems, perceptions and ‘territorial language’ as a domestic justification for international events and actions. In the academic literature, a lot of attention is paid to the recent cross-border phenomenon of Dutch jihadists travelling to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State in their struggle for the establishment of a jihadist caliphate, and repressive trend in the adopted measures by the Dutch government. Unfortunately, there is a lack of geographical understandings towards this topic. Through content and discourse analysis, this thesis tries to contribute to a better understanding from a geographical perspective by unravelling the hidden debate on role of the statehood in the political and public debates on this topic. It demonstrates that the Dutch parliamentarian and media debates are fruitful sources for conceptualisations on sovereignty, territory and citizenship. The distinguishable narratives foster a ‘nationalization’ of the representation of spaces in which the dominance of the state scale shapes the Dutch statehood and its political community. 3 4 Table of content 1. Introduction 9 2. The contested statehood and geopolitical representations 12 2.1 Debates on the transformative statehood 12 2.2 Geopolitical representations on statehood 14 3. Research design 17 3.1 Operationalization of concepts 17 3.2 Study on the contextualization of the phenomenon 18 3.3 Parliamentarian and media debates 19 3.4 Analysis strategies 21 3.5 Limitations and constraints 22 4. Dutch jihadist fighters and the European and international context 23 4.1 International context 23 4.2 European context 25 4.3 Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq and repressive policies 26 5. Parliamentarian debates 31 5.1 Development of the parliamentarian debates 31 5.2 State as repressive enforcer of national security 37 5.3 State as guarantor of the constitutional state and inclusiveness 39 5.4 State as a bounded territorial entity 42 6. Media debates 45 6.1 De Volkskrant 45 6.2 De Telegraaf 49 6.3 Similarities and differences in the Dutch media 52 7. Conclusion and discussion 55 8. Literature list 59 9. Appendices Appendix 1 – ICCT literature list 63 Appendix 2 - Overview of Dutch political parties in de Tweede Kamer 67 Appendix 3 – List of all search results of the parliamentarian debates 69 Appendix 4 – Codebook qualitative analysis 71 Appendix 5 – Ethical procedure and questions by the AISSR 72 Appendix 6 – Data on parliamentarian debates 73 Appendix 7 – Data on media debates 88 5 6 List of Abbreviations AIVD Algemene Inlichtingen en Dutch security service Veiligheids Dienst CTC Counter Terrorism European Counter Terrorism Coordinator Coordinator CvdRM College voor de Rechten Netherlands Institute van de Mens Human Rights EVN Europees Verdrag Nationaliteit European Treaty on Nationality ICC Internationaal strafhof International Criminal Court ICCT Internationaal Centrum voor International Centre for Counter- Counter-Terrorisme Terrorism IND Integratie en Naturalisatie Integration and Naturalization Dienst Service NCTV National Coordinator Terrorisme National Coordinator Terrorism en Veiligheid and Security OM Openbaar Ministerie Public Prosecutor Service UNSC Verenigde Naties Veiligheidsraad United Nations Security Council List of Dutch terminology IS-strijder Term referring to a member, in particular a fighter, of Islamic State Jihadganger Term referring to an individual travelling to foreign countries – in this context Syria and Iraq – for jihadist purposes Jihadstrijder Term referring to jihadist fighter Syriëganger Term referring to a jihadist – from the Netherlands or other western countries – travelling to Syria (and Iraq) for jihadist purposes Syriëreis Term referring to a trip to Syria to participate in the Syrian civil war, mostly because of jihadist purposes 7 8 1 Introduction “Leaving them there does not make us safe. The debate about whether or not to actively bring back Dutch jihadists who are currently in Kurdish camps has flared up again in the recent weeks. The reason for this is the statement made by US President Trump who told the Europeans to repatriate their jihadists. There was also an interview with the jihadist Yago R. from Arnhem who indicated that he wished to return to the Netherlands with his family. A large majority of the public and the Tweede Kamer [Dutch House of Representatives] does not think it is a good idea to actively engage in helping those people to return. It is assumed that there is enough to do about the jihadists in our own country and that we should not include people like Yago as well. Leave them there, far away from the Netherlands. That sounds clear and safe, but it is short-sighted and unfortunately does not make us any safer.” (Bakker, 9 March 2019, De Telegraaf: Binnenland, p. 24). Since the emergence of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, hundreds, nearly a thousand, of European jihadist sympathizers left their homeland to join such violent jihadist organizations (De Roy van Zuijdewijn, 2014). After the collapse of the caliphate in 2017, policy makers started to warn more urgent for the potential surge of jihadist fighters that will return to their home country (NATO, 2017) – the so-called blowback effect (Vidino, 2014). This caused a lot of political and public anxiety and triggered a broad debate about the fate of these individuals, like the abovementioned example, which was recently published in the Dutch media, shows. Although multiple studies found that only a small minority will eventually return home (De Roy van Zuijdewijn, 2014), those returnees are often perceived as potential threats because they will carry out terrorist attacks in their home country and disrupt the social cohesion either within or around European Member states (NATO, 2017). The terrorist attacks on a Jewish Museum in Brussels and on the headquarters of the satiric newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris in May 2014 and January 2015 respectively carried out by returnees from Syria confirmed these fears. As a result, there was pressure increased on European leaders to act upon forceful measures to fight such threats (De Roy van Zuijdewijn, 2014; Reed et al., 2015). Despite the fact that European countries have an extensive set of measures consisting of both preventive (soft) and repressive (hard) measures, Reed et al. (2015, p. 7) identified “a slow but steady move towards more repressive measures”. With the fall of the caliphate and the feared return of jihadist fighters, debates towards this phenomenon and the adopted approaches further intensified because of the growing fear for more returnees. In the academic literature as well as in policy-related research documents, there is unfortunately a considerable lack of geographical understandings towards this specific topic. The existing literature mainly focuses on historical examples (de Roy van Zuijdewijn, 2014), psychological questions on the who and the why (Weggemans et al., 2014; Bakker & de Bont, 2016), or moral and legal challenges and constraints in policy concerning repressive measures (Carey, 2018; Barry & Ferracioli, 2015; Solow, 2011). In many respects, terrorism and counter- or anti-terrorism policies are related to geographical issues and geography provides very 9 valuable alternative perspectives on such topics (de Blij, 2012; Flint, 2003; Bahgat & Medina, 2013). More specifically, jihadist fighters and the repressive measures against them have a strong link with the subdiscipline of geopolitics, which tackles issues on policymaking, geopolitical discourses, international relations, boundaries and power structures (Mamadouh, 1999; de Blij, 2012). This exploratory research will demonstrate that the debates on the phenomenon on returning jihadist fighters and the adopted measures are fruitful sources for geopolitical representations on the perceived threat rising from the phenomenon and, more specifically, the role of the state in the adopted pre-dominantly repressive measures towards these individuals. To do so, this research focuses on the Dutch case study considering it is an interesting case because of its significant number of jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq compared to its size (Bakker & de Bont, 2015), and the multiple forceful measures and actions the Dutch government adopted towards this perceived security threat (Vidino et al., 2014). The aim is to unravel both the obvious and underlying geopolitical representations of the role of the state in the Dutch