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Lorenzo Vidino (ed.), De-Radicalization in the Mediterranean. Comparing Challenges and Approaches (Milan: Ledizioni LediPublishing, 2018)

In its very long history, the Mediterranean region has witnessed a remarkable share of cruelties and bloodshed, ranging from warfare to slave trafficking. In its recent history, jihadist terrorism has been adding its own gruesome contribution to this sorry record of human misery and misfortune. The book hereby reviewed, published under the aegis of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), comprises nine chapters dealing with the responses taken by State authorities on the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, as well as in the Middle Eastern region at large, in order to pursue effective counter-terrorist prevention and retaliation, i.e. “[c]ountering violent extremism (CVE)” (7).

The first chapter, penned by the book’s editor, tackles the paradoxical case of Italy. Despite being an active NATO member involved in foreign military actions alongside the US and a centrally situated Mediterranean country—indeed a veritable hub for migratory fluxes and an “iconic” location of Western Christendom—Italy has experienced hardly any jihadist terrorism on its soil and has contributed far less than the other major European countries in terms of radical fighters leaving its soil in order to join rebel groups in Syria or elsewhere (13). This paradox is explained by highlighting the long experience and well-tested expertise of Italian legislators, governments, courts and security bodies with regard to both internal terrorist groups and powerful organised crime, as well as the thorough use of “lengthy surveillance operations and pre-emptive raids” in conjunction with speedy “deportations” of persons that are deemed “a threat to national security” even when the courts lack damning evidence that could warrant judicial “prosecution” (15). Vidino concludes that, despite its success, Italy’s CVE approach is not designed to deal with homegrown jihadist terrorism, which might well grow in the future as the Italian Muslim community grows in numbers, and to deploy preventive measures in schools, prisons and communities where radicalisation could occur.

Vidino’s concerns sound most reasonable as soon as the reader starts considering the content of the second chapter, which deals with the long history of “international religious extremism” inside Italy’s western neighbour, France (24). Between the 1980s and the 2010s, the Gallic nation has suffered a remarkable number of violent attacks and contributed thousands of foreign fighters to conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). For a long time, the prevalent approach by the French authorities was forcefully retaliatory, but as of the mid 2010s ‘soft-power’ prevention and de-radicalisation programmes started emerging as well. Prisons, online communities, professional bodies, public administrators, civic associations, select neighbourhoods and Islamic worship centres have been targeted by a number of initiatives, both at the national and departmental levels, aimed at fostering the appreciation for the secular founding values of the French Republic, the identification of potential contexts of radicalisation, and the de-radicalisation of individuals and groups gone astray. As to “the legitimacy and effectiveness of these initiatives”, it is too soon to pass judgment (31).

The third chapter offers a perplexing picture of a country that, like Italy, had an extensive counter-terrorist know-how built in its institutional history and organisations but that, like France, has suffered much more carnage and exportation of volunteer fighters to conflict zones in MENA: Spain. After the shock of the 3/11 attacks in Madrid, existing procedures were thoroughly reviewed at all levels: legislative, governmental, judiciary, of policing and intelligence. Above all, more resources were poured in, which translated into more trained individuals dealing with CVE. Also, uniquely in the international context, the shifting of public investments meant that Spain adopted “an advanced model to acknowledge the moral and political significance of the victims of terrorism and effectively protect their rights and the rights of their families in the case of dead victims, including material compensation.” (46) Finally, ‘soft-power’ preventive measures started being implemented too as of 2012, analogously to the French case.

The fourth chapter outlines the CVE policies developed in MENA. The experiences of many countries are thus sketched very briefly and only in connection with specific issues (e.g. anti-radicalism online platforms, big-data screening, religious policies, foreign fighting, etc.). Some significant results of this comparative study are: Algeria’s being the country contributing the fewest foreign fighters to the Islamic State in Syria (probably the result of Algeria’s hard-nosed repression of fundamentalism during its “Black Decade”, 1991—2002; 65); Tunisia’s being the one contributing the most (possibly because of the relocation of Algerian extremists into that neighbouring country during the Algerian civil war); the widespread use of uncompromising, direct State intervention in the interpreting, teaching, preaching, publishing, broadcasting and financing of the Islamic religion (e.g. Saudi Arabia’s proposed “reform” of the “religious curriculum” by 2030; 66); and the intentionally “ambiguous” and open-ended wording of new counter-terrorism legislation, which can help the governments of these countries target potential terrorists as well as “silence critics and imprison activists.” (67)

The following and concluding five chapters examine in finer detail the CVE measures and approaches developed in five specific countries in MENA: Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. While the policies pursued in all these countries but Jordan present considerable overlaps—Jordan’s uniqueness being its focus on creating a buffer zone along its border with Syria and preventing radicalism to cross it in either direction—the tone and the character of the contributions are anything but alike. The chapters about Morocco and Egypt offer an invariably dispassionate, comprehensive account of the many hard- and soft-power strategies implemented over the years, the former stressing interestingly how individual “psychological vulnerabilities” explain chiefly the radicals’ “captivat[ion] by violent extremism” (89). On the contrary, the chapter about Tunisia discusses at length the social and sociological premises of this captivation, and it suggests that without concrete progress in the State’s good-governance levels (e.g. reducing unemployment, improving the rule of law, transparency and accountability), radicalisation is bound to persist. Any critical spirit is, instead, absent in the chapters about Jordan and, above all, Saudi Arabia, both of which read somewhat like ministerial communiques reporting, respectively,  Jordan’s “foreign policy priorities” (133) and Saudi Arabia’s supreme role in “upholding Islam and Islamic law, which makes it the archenemy of all radical and terrorist groups claiming to hold a monopoly over the understanding and application of Islamic law and faith.” (139)

Together, all these nine chapters grant the reader an exhaustive account of the tools instituted and utilised by public authorities all over MENA and much of Southern Europe over the past two-and-a-half decades. Scholars in police and security studies, international politics and relations, and counter-terrorism are bound to find the volume of interest. The overall focus, it must be noted, is on nitty-gritty hard- and soft-power approaches implemented in each country or group of countries. Although references to colonial experiences, U.S. military interventions, and strategic interests or conflicts are sketchily present here and there in the volume, no serious geopolitical or historical aetiology of fundamentalist terrorism is to be found.

A note on the forthcoming volume “Romanian – Moroccan Forms of Manifestation in the European Space”

 

 

 

Both Romanian and Moroccan spaces resonate in an un-syncopated way, after more than half a century’s worth of diplomatic relations; as for the political, touristic and economic (inter)related connections, these are considered, without reservation, excellent (both by bilateral factors and at the level of international organisms – a reality confirmed by their Excellencies Ambassador Simona Corlan Ioan and Ambassador Faouz El Achchabi, and expressed as such in their Conference locutions).

 

Stimulating a re-appraisal of tradition and intensifying the political dialogue, with the explicit intention of amplifying economic-cultural ratios (with superior valences conferred by the position both states are assuming inside their respective regions: Romania, as member of the European Union, and the Kingdom of Morocco, as an EU privileged partner) is underlined by the exemplary status of architectural formulas describing an interchanging place/circulatory space (culturally-economic or politically-diplomatic).

 

All these aspects are offering a propensity for axial coordinates of European-ism and European(ity), while at the same time proposing solutions, openings and innovative strategies.

 

In this spiral one cannot ignore the even episodic-concerted action of (re)affirming multiculturalism and multilingualism, still maintained as an ego-political reality. Symbolic elements are reloaded and re-integrated by the “Maalouf Commission” amongst whose artisans one can recognize, as an inspiring/counseling factor of European strategy, both the political man, and the writer/artist/ cultural man as such.

Hence the non-incidental option, which banks upon political and cultural-artistic templates of manifestation inside European space, as a complementary mod(ality) of translating of/by texts/studies/interventions/ presentations (or virtual ones) which use both English language as a synchronizing formula for/in the idiomatic mode of global(izing) research, and French language, as a chance for harmonizing intercultural horizons/spaces.

 

Re-anchored inside European space, the conference’s main objective was to establish the tension impact of space upon place, received and interpreted as a complex and complete occurrence, propagated from/within (remnant) inherited connections, easy to understand through an acceptance of modernity’s crisis symptoms, manifested both inside the hard bench-marks of space and/in geography’s relativistic capacity to offering re-vitalize/recompose itself.

 

The interventions proposed an elucidation of the term space, perceived as an abstract entity (acknowledging variables in distance, direction, size, form, volume) detached from any material form/formula or cultural interpretation; and of the concept of place, seen as a space vector for unique assemblies of things, meanings, values, practices, people, objects and representations.

 

Connected to these constantly confirmed and affirmed ideas, the conference both illustrated and offered arguments for the same problems which diplomacy reiterates as an essential(izing) score recaptured in/through political stability- favorable climate- belonging to the Francophone space – by re-evaluating through actualization and/or data adjustment historically-verified elements/effects; a clarifying space/place relationship accenting political forms of manifestation within European space and cultural-artistic experiences/experiments.

 

The tri-phased arguments supporting the theme/texture of certain panels take into account the fact that Romanian – Moroccan relations can (also) offer a circuit/alternative for solving implicit spikes/pulses of the European crisis.

 

Interventions by Professors and Researchers – Ian Browne, François Bréda, Ana Maria Negoita, Abdelmjid Kettioui implicitly clarify the terminology of tradition as mode of constructing identities, where the locale is accepted/perceived as both an accompanying state and a possibility of transcending space, as a synapse through which Eliza Raduca comments upon the resonating mode status of place in/at Francophone space.

 

The analysis is completed by studies which narrow the modes of construction for place/space, accenting significances expressed by explanatory/clarifying terms of societas/ communitas architecture with reflections in concepts such as faith, myth, time, identity, urbanization or international community.

 

With the absolutely necessary mention that the multi-focal method was applied/approved in its entirety during the present endeavor – either by the approach, trans-focalization or even the apparent detachment needed for a (re)placing of the proposed themes within context – through a mechanism of relating.

 

Romania and Morocco maintain a common place of contacts and periodical-institutional meetings, specific for political-diplomatic relationships situated within traditional lines and continuously confirming their given title of best connections.

 

The specific subject was presented using both geo-political and geo-poetical instruments, by Researchers such as Željko Mirkov, Lucian Jora, Adina Burchiu, Cristina Arvatu Vohn, Henrieta Serban, Abdelaziz El Amrani, Marouane Zakhir, Layachi El Habbouch or Monaim El Azzouzi, who suggest new harmonizing perspectives while noting that such an approach repositions both Romania and Morocco within a place resonating with European space, with its stages and layers accepting of inventories/ shelved materials which can be used as reference points/strategies and intersecting modes, and also as political and cultural-diplomatic instances.

 

A space of experiments and Romanian – Moroccan cultural-artistic experiences resonates with a certain periodicity and accepts traditions which, reclaiming their perennial values from the directions traced by the Governmental Agreement for Cultural Collaboration (1969) is stimulated by new opinions, perspectives and approaches.

 

This sequencing only confirms that the angle of investigation/research is imposed by dynamic space bolsters, and impossible to separate from post-modern globalizing tendencies as translated in a new reading of Mohammed Al-Sadoun’s The Freedom Monument; unable not to maintain the relationship between images (Valentin Trifesco) – narrative/diarium/journey (Carmen Burcea) – or a symbology of the veil (Claudia Moscovici).

 

Such a dynamic ”trajectory” certifies all Michel Deguy-ian (Franta / România [France/ Romania], in Secolul 21, no. 1-6, 2009, pp. 316-318) assertions in the sense of a mediating association between two terms equally involved in a perspective-changing relationship (either volitional or involuntary, by referencing a changing World/Europe) and re-computing the horizon (with all its hesitatingly-skeptical or apocalyptic- favorable premonitions): the Romania-Morocco relationship positional handles any particularizing immediacy of an universally-mediated Europe.

 

On the basis of these opinions one can signal the tri-phase force effect already announced, with concluding notes in re-assessing a report which does not reclaim hierarchies and does not articulate the statute of any device.

 

Considering than any account implies a multiplication of dimensions accepting both essentialization and selection depending on certain intensified-effect building materials, any places of rest found when traveling through space determine their own transformation, by ensuring co-participation and offering a chance for an inventory of opportunities while at the same time indicating an act of establishment concerning their own selves (far from the traps of quantification or any pretensions of exhausting the theme).

 

Certainly, the Romanian – Moroccan project will be also materialized and finalized by the publication of a collective volume, thanks to the constantly-revived contact with a significantly-interesting part of the Moroccan scientific community (a relationship proved also by the presence of Moroccan community representatives in Romania during the Conference) with whom we have harmonically agreed upon inexhaustible thematic convergence nodes/places and kaleidoscopic formulas of attracting/bringing together subjects deploying from this common option.

 

Florian Vetsch (Tanger Trance, Bern, Sulgen, Zürich, 2010) geo-temporally comments upon the consequences of a tristesse européenne (in its nostalgia-filled, recovering mode) by appealing to a differentiated mode of partitioning time – the two-hour time-lag between Morocco and Europe. One can also consider a qsim – intensified relationship, in the sense in which any Moroccans doing business with Europe have to wake up very early in the summer, and presentified by the fact that, only in Tangier, ntina signifies an undifferentiated identity, in the sense of that societas/communitas; a cultural node, unraveled by the great story-teller Jilala- Mohammed Mrabet, whose identity was doubted by Tahar Ben Jelloun who considered him to be just a Bowles-ian fiction. Inside amplified/accompanying space considered to be the opening place of the book Sacred Night by Tahar Ben Jelloun (Noaptea sacra [The Sacred Night], Art Publishing House, Bucharest, 2008), the state of the place chapter traces, inside the commenced and abandoned story, a sliding state for a storyteller devoid of memory (but not of imagination) as a builder of central point’s aiming towards complete possession of the market, in the sense in which no one was allowed to leave Bushaib´s circle. The annotated place in the perspective of an apparently closed circle suffers from the immobile equivalents of a space where nothing changes, and everything stays (remains) as it was first created, being subjected only to outside assault, as a competitive chance of both meeting and conflict. “I had reached Marrakesh the previous night, determined to meet the storyteller who had been bankrupted by telling my story”.

 

Both the conference and the on-publishing volume aim to be an (inter)relational approach-investigation of the idea that place and space adjusting re-compute time, with harmonizing identities impossible to separate from the narrative formulations which exist and relate themselves to each other.

 

Transposed in the spirit of the common Romanian – Moroccan archi-text, within the score of multiculturalism and multilingualism (an objective achieved also through the implication of the Center for Philological and Intercultural Research of the Letters and Arts Faculty, “Lucian Blaga” University- Sibiu, through its director, Gheorghe Manolache) one can agree upon our collective involvement in launching a common idiom which propagates the idea that everyone has the possibility of acceding to the three dimensions of communication, through language: autochthonous (maternal), allogenous (paternal) and the third, as complementary as an European-izing intersection.

 

In the act of initiation, Christopher Columbus was showing his Master the Sea, which included the Earth from a Pole to another, the boundless space, the one which once was the Garden of the Hesperides. A possible compass would indicate the extreme Western of the Mediterranean Sea, in the nearby paternity of Atlas Mountains, maybe in Tangier, to the edge of the Ocean: it is a tempting invitation (operated both by the conference and volume) to sail into a space where apples of immortality are still growing!

 

 

ACKNOWDLEGMENTS:

* The present material is organized as an introduction to the forthcoming volume including the interventions presented at the International Conference “Romanian – Moroccan Forms of Manifestation in the European Space, organized by the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, 9-10 April 2014.

 

**As a director of the project and coordinator of the volume, I would like to address with deference, my gratitude for all the support to Professor and Researcher, Director of the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations, Dan Dungaciu and to Historian and Researcher, Stelian Neagoe. Also my truly thanks for their effort, work and constant collaboration to Researcher Ana Maria Negoita and to Researcher and Translator Ian Browne. I would like also to mention the effective help and effort of Daniela Paul and Emilian Popa.