Resilience after terrorism – a party or a hard work?

Yesterday, our University organised and hosted a symposium „Resilience after terrorism“ where different speakers got a chance to talk about their research, first hand experience and opinions. In  sea of opinions, methodologies, John Lennon and even pastors’ grace speech which he ended with big and loud: „AMEN“, one little fact kept buzzing in my head.

Did you know that the last speaker, retired professor of Sustainable Development and citizen of our city of Tilburg, was also the only person in our city that took part in the government-sponsored program which supports the incentives of hosting refugees for duration of about three months? In short, he’s the only person in our city who took a young syrian refugee and made him part of the family for some time.

Why is this problematic?

In my opinion, this is problematic because it shows the shortcomings in our long-term resilience building policies on the one hand, and on the other, I think that retired professors’ example should be followed, if we’re interested in taking this active role of integrating newcomers. His speech further convinced me that the integration takes place in small communities, where first cultural differences are bridged, language learning is sparked and in such way, allowing this person to be your „roomate“ is a great way to go.

Best kept secret

This government run project of hosting refugees seems not to be a widely discussed matter. Why is that the case? Is it possible that we’re simply not informed enough or is there indeed no public will to let the stranger occupy the room where our kids used to hide their Playboy?

It might be that both possible sides of the story influence each other and then result in lack of pursuing such action. So, it is easily possible to imagine how the lack of information can influence the lack of trust in taking part in such incentive.

Now, this seems awfuly familiar – the relationship between state of ignorance (here, the lack of knowledge) and fear. Just how often are we able to recognize this relationship in issues surrounding the resilience after terrorism, refugee crisis or religious/political fundamentalism?

But what can one do? I think that the best way to proceed is to again and again, ask questions. If all this is correct, and the professor did have a positive experience hosting this young man while he was preparing for his dutch language exam, why shouldn’t we talk about it more?

In the end, those who really want to be part of this resilience building wont satisfy themselves wih parables and gospels but will go out and help those kids get their 5.5. on Dutch language exam.

Disclaimer: All information was collected at the Symposium itself and individual Internet search. I will welcome any corrections.

_Advertentie.