Page 53 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 5-6: Radicalization, Violent Extremism and Conflicting Diversity, eds. Mitja Sardoč and Tomaž Deželan
P. 53
Radicalization, Violent Extremism
and Conflicting Diversity
An Interview with Michel Wieviorka
Mitja Sardoč
Prof. Michel Wieviorka is currently president, Fondation Maison
des Sciences de l’Homme, and professor at Ecole des Hautes Etudes
en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. He served as president of the
International Sociological Association (ISA 2006-2010), and is a mem-
ber of the scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC).
He is the author of The Arena of Racism (Sage), The Making of Terrorism
(University of Chicago Press), The Lure of Anti-Semitism (Brill), Violence:
A New Approach (Sage), Evil (Polity Press).
What are the most important differences between violent ex-
tremism fueled by radicalisation and other forms of terrorism
that existed in different European countries back in the 1960s
and 1970s, e.g. Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK (those you have
examined in your book The Making of Terrorism [Sociétés et
terrorisme])?
We have to distinguish, between what I will call classical terrorism, and
global terrorism. Classical terrorism began, at least seen from Europe,
in the sixties, and was at its highest level in the seventies and ear-
ly eighties. It could be domestic, then with three main possibilities: ex-
treme-left, extreme-right, and independentist (for instance, Basque, or
Irish). Sometimes, a same country, or a same movement could combine
two aspects. Italy faced in the seventies both extreme-left and extreme
right terrorisms, the Basque and the Irish movements had sometimes ex-
treme-left components. And classical terrorism could also be internation-
al, which was mainly the case with those groups that acted in name of the
51
and Conflicting Diversity
An Interview with Michel Wieviorka
Mitja Sardoč
Prof. Michel Wieviorka is currently president, Fondation Maison
des Sciences de l’Homme, and professor at Ecole des Hautes Etudes
en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. He served as president of the
International Sociological Association (ISA 2006-2010), and is a mem-
ber of the scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC).
He is the author of The Arena of Racism (Sage), The Making of Terrorism
(University of Chicago Press), The Lure of Anti-Semitism (Brill), Violence:
A New Approach (Sage), Evil (Polity Press).
What are the most important differences between violent ex-
tremism fueled by radicalisation and other forms of terrorism
that existed in different European countries back in the 1960s
and 1970s, e.g. Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK (those you have
examined in your book The Making of Terrorism [Sociétés et
terrorisme])?
We have to distinguish, between what I will call classical terrorism, and
global terrorism. Classical terrorism began, at least seen from Europe,
in the sixties, and was at its highest level in the seventies and ear-
ly eighties. It could be domestic, then with three main possibilities: ex-
treme-left, extreme-right, and independentist (for instance, Basque, or
Irish). Sometimes, a same country, or a same movement could combine
two aspects. Italy faced in the seventies both extreme-left and extreme
right terrorisms, the Basque and the Irish movements had sometimes ex-
treme-left components. And classical terrorism could also be internation-
al, which was mainly the case with those groups that acted in name of the
51
