Mark Dechesne discusses the decline in terrorist violence in the Netherlands in Dutch newspaper Reformatorisch Dagblad
At the winter conference of the Dutch Christian student union CSFR, Mark Dechesne, Associate Professor, spoke about the decline in terrorist violence in the Netherlands.
Mark Dechesne was invited as a guest speaker at the conference which centred around the theme: 'Terreur buiten de deur?' (Terrorism on the other side of the door?). According to Dechesne, it is difficult to say what the actual impact of terrorism is on the history of the world: 'it may well be that there is a decline in violence but that modern means of communication are used to spread the political message of terrorist movements across the world enabling it to spread fear as a result’. According to Dechesne, the beginnings of terrorism can be traced back to 1850 and the revolt against the oppression of the czar regime in Russia, which resulted in the death of Alexander II. Another reason why he believes that particular year is particularly important is the rise of social unrest and the invention of explosives.
The innovations in printing enabling messages to be spread using pamphlets also played a crucial role according to Dechesne: 'you can state that terrorism has mostly been able to develop as a result of the development of the communication technology.'