What can we do about what happened to us? Guests: Roland Prevot, Olenka Czarnocki

IE: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of ‘We Can Find a Way’ in 2025. Let me start with an announcement. This podcast is now sponsored by Dr. Paolo Michele Patocchi, Attorney at Law and Arbitrator. I'm grateful for his engagement with alternative dispute resolution in Turkey by participating in multiple conferences, teaching at Bilkent University in Ankara, and now supporting “We Can Find a Way”. In this episode, I'm talking to two persons from Retissons du lien, a group that brought together people who were bereaved by, or were survivors of the attacks in Brussels and Paris, families of those who were concerned about their children being involved in the Jihadist ideology, and frontline workers in the field. My guests are, Roland Prevot and Olenka Czarnocki, whom I interviewed on 15th January 2025. I will give their short bios at the end of this episode. Now, let's dive into the interview.

Thanks for agreeing to talk to me. Olenka and Roland. Please tell me, what is Rettisons du lien, and how was it established?

RP: It started in 2013, when two young students from Isabelle, Isabelle is the one who initiated the group, from Isabelle's neighbourhood, left for Syria before the rising of the IS. So, these two young boys left to help the population and to contribute to the fall of dictatorship. At that time, Isabelle tried to understand what could motivate such teenagers to leave everything behind, and to engage themselves in such adventure, if I may call this an adventure. So, she contacted Saliha in 2014, she lost her son, and she started to meet other mothers who had lived such dramatic experience, and these mothers were facing stigmatisation, guilt and shame. The guilt of not having been able to prevent their child's departure, for not having seen the radicalisation process, and then the shame also of “being the mother of”. They were called “the mother of the boy who left and died in Syria” or “who left and joined the IS”. And so, Isabelle and her colleague Vincent, who are both clinical sociologists, they organised a workshop for those mothers on the topic of shame. This was what initiated the whole thing. Then afterwards, Isabelle created several tools to work on the radicalisation processes which could be used in schools, in closed educational centres, and then the aim was to prevent more youngsters to leave for Syria and engage themselves in such mortifying adventure. These actions were already in place before the bombing attack in Brussels.

IE: But there was no terror attack at that time?

RP: At that time, it was really to help these mothers to live with the fact of “being the mother of” and being stigmatised, et cetera. So that was really what they first worked on. And then afterwards, Isabelle started to put in place all these different tools, with the aim of preventing more young people leaving. In those years we are in 2014, 15, 16, there were a lot of people leaving from Brussels, and in some specific areas of Brussels leaving for Syria. It's really a phenomenon which was very big and very frightening.

IE: Apparently, in proportion to its population, Belgium has the highest number of people that went to Syria.

RP: I think it's Belgium and Denmark in Europe.

IE: Why do you think that is?

OC: I wasn't aware of that. We have never discussed this inside the group. It has not been a topic like we have thought about, why did they leave, and how was the impact to the family. To me, it's an interesting question.

RP: There have been lots of books written about this. The group, its objective was not to work on those issues, was not to analyse the phenomenon, but the idea was to share everybody's own experience facing this phenomena, and of being victim of terrorist attacks, being the victim of departure, and the death of a close one in Jihadist ideology. So, this is what really we worked together, we didn't work to try to understand why.

IE: Are we talking about hundreds? I have no idea.

RP: You have the people who left and who arrived in Syria, and you have the young who tried to go to Syria. I mean, this is different. A lot of them have been stopped before reaching Syria

IE: By the law enforcement, or their families?

RP: By the authorities because they were teenagers, because their families informed the authorities. But I don't know, it's probably a few hundred since, and here we were before the creation of the group after the bombing attack in Brussels, in Paris. And here we speak about the phenomena which mainly happened in 2014, 15, 16 afterwards, it’s becoming very different.

IE: Right.

RP: Our work has changed after the bombing attacks because suddenly, as frontline workers, we were asked to try to determine, and to identify people who were showing signs of radicalisation, and then I had a training by the police one day to identify people at risk. I mean, they had the jellabiyah, they had a long beard, they changed their way of eating. I mean, it was very, very basic things. It was kind of sounds a bit stupid, I must say. This period was just like everybody became fearful. Security was on everybody's lips, we had to work on security, and then as a frontline worker, as a mediator, it jeopardised our way of working because the confidentiality we had with our beneficiaries was put at risk because we were asked to identify and to denounce people who had strange behaviours. 2016 was difficult time, yes, if you don't denounce somebody, some social workers could say “okay, if I don't denounce this or what I see, I might put into trouble because I haven't done what I'm supposed to do in this time”.

IE: For my country?

RP: For my country, for the security of my own people, etc. etc. yes.

OC: I was confronted to the topic in another way. So, I am a teacher in a high school in an area quite similar of the area where the most of the young people who went to Syria came from. But in my school, we have not been confronted directly with departures but with all the consequences of the attacks, which were in a very short time, a lot of questions about the society, but a lot of questions about Islam, about why did those people do this in the name of Islam, which Islam is this? And then all discrimination, polarisation, racism that rise from those situations. Some of my students who were feeling discriminated because they are part of the Muslim society, because they are Muslims, and other students who were doing some amalgams between terrorism and religion. So, I was confronted to the need of teaching and this is why I developed a course. I am a teacher of History, Philosophy. I tried to focus on history of terrorism because I thought it was important to understand the phenomenon of terrorism in a long period, since the Middle ages, even since Antiquity, just to understand that terrorism has not always been connected to Islam, which is what some students think. It has not always been connected to religion. It has been political, and so, I did a course about history of terrorism. And in philosophy, we did a lot of thinking (about) the society we want to live in, or analysing the media. How does the media speak about those phenomenons before COVID.

RP: So after the bombing attacks seen in March 2015?, there was a march one month after it, like in April, I think, against terror, which was organised in Brussels by a collective of different organisations to pay tribute to the victims of the attacks. And at this march, you had Saliha whose son died in Syria, and you had Lisa, who was a victim of the Zaventem attack at the airport. There's a photo of them holding like a banner, Lisa on one side and Saliha on the other side, and on this banner was written “Rettisons du lien” which means in English, reweaving connections or weaving links and in the middle, there was a red heart. And, they had to walk together at the same pace and they had to tie this banner in order for people to be able to read it, and so the message of this was that was two mothers that were supporting each another, facing the pain of being a victim of having lost her son and being a victim of the attack, and also showing the absence of meaning of this whole thing. These two mothers were carrying a message of hope and building the possibility of common future. This was a very strong moment, it was planned that they would be interviewed by the Belgium radio and they were told at that time that the society was not ready for this. The society is not ready to hear the mother of a boy who went to Syria and the person victim of a bombing attack.

IE: That was the media's understanding of society, and it wasn't really data based I guess?

RP: iIt was also “the moment”. All the media, the kind of, okay, there's good and there's evil, and there was a polarisation, binary way of thinking, polarisation of society. And this is what the group is aiming at, is fighting against this polarisation and this binary way of thinking. All this to be security. We have to focus on security, security. And we are not open to have people sharing and talking together, and trying to understand what happened to us, not only to Lisa, but to everybody. The whole society has been impacted.

IE: We're talking about secondary victimisation, third victimisation in terms of society, I guess, but was it purposeful that this placard was carried by them?

RP: It was on purpose, clearly, I mean, the message was that.

IE: If we can hold it together, you know, then society can.

RP: Yeah, yeah. Isabelle and Vincent, they were kind of surprised that no public institution would take this citizen movement as a basis for reflecting, and for thinking about the cause and the consequences of such extreme violence. And so, from this very symbolic march that brought together people from all kinds of backgrounds, it was from age, gender, religious, the idea of creating a space or existential exchange was born at that time in the mind of Isabelle and Vincent. It was not the idea of creating a space where people could speak about themselves, could share their experience, could feel listened to, and engage in citizen action, investing themselves in prevention activities and testimonials. This was the idea that really motivated Vincent and Isabelle to create this group. It's a group where people share, where people think and act with the objective of transforming society which motivates us.

IE: What do you think was the reason behind this treating the subject as a hot potato?

OC: I think many people, the first time when they hear about our group, they are surprised.

RP: It's not possible.

OC: Many people think it is not possible, this cannot happen, and actually we can certify that it does because we are here. I don't know if it is fear of misunderstanding, of lack of creativity, or just something uncommon to bring different people concerned by terrorist attacks but concerned in very different ways. And it is very uncommon, and that's really what I admire Isabelle and Vincent for, because they had the idea to do it, and they did it and it did work. Most of the people, first reaction is like, “no”. I think many people think like that, and then if you start to talk to think a very little bit, it becomes okay. It is not difficult for most of the people to consider the mothers of those youth who left to Syria as victims. It's not the first word you would think of about them. They are mothers of, they are fathers of, they are brothers, sisters, but actually if you think, I think if you have a little empathy for those families and you think of the fact that they have left a child that has been recruited and brought in a war, of course those families are victims. And I think you just have to take a little bit of time to think about it, to think how they would react, and then it is quite easy.

RP: At the beginning of the group, we had people, victims of the bombing attacks in Paris and Brussels. We had the mothers of child that left to Syria, who was radicalised and joined the Jihadist ideology. And then you had frontline workers, at the beginning, those mothers were called “the mothers concerned by a child who left to Syria”. And then we worked on the words being used altogether, we worked on how do we call ourselves? Are we a victim? No, we are “a person who has been victim of” this already is the first point. And then the mothers are also person, victim of the departure and the death of a child in Syria. To change the way, we called them also enabled those mothers to declare themselves as being victims of, and I think this is kind of recognition and this is very important to say.

IE: A new identity more than being the mother of X and Y. Olenka said brothers, sisters, fathers as well. And how did you start this process? Like how did you find these mothers, families? And I'm assuming not all the families wanted to be in your group.

RP: At the beginning it's Isabelle's network she worked with Saliha. Saliha had an association of mothers who had lived the same drama, so it has been years of networking for Isabelle. First she had the mothers, then she started to hear about person victims. She contacted some person victims; she proposed them to join the group, and then there was a father also who was the father of one of the Bataclan bombing attack joined the group as well. The father of a victim of the Bataclan joined the group as well. So, I mean the word kind of spread around and then it just happened.

OC: What I have seen during the years, is that with some events that we have organised and with following the trial, because last year was the trial of those attacks in Brussels, we have been more in contact with associations of victims, like established associations of persons victims. And many of them have been very interested by our work and have been interested by joining. They have come to different events that we have organised during the trial or after the trial, to talk about the trial. I think the aim was the same about the families of the accused people during the trial, because it was not so easy to get in contact with them.

IE: You brought these people together, but you put some ground rules so that somebody wouldn't get upset or hurt or triggered by seeing something, because it's not an easy process to manage high emotion.

RP: Sure, it started in 2018 so that

IE: After a certain amount of time, yeah okay.

RP: So, we had like encounters like every six weeks or two months, more or less. We were probably like 20-30 people depending. It's an ongoing process. Every time we meet, we co-construct the rules, we co-construct the frame for the next encounter. So, it's we say in French “le chemin se fait en marchant”. The path is made when we walk. So the approach, it's clinical sociology that Vincent and Isabellele are trained in. It was more like try to get as close as possible to the individual's experience while enabling the development of like, more in depth conceptual thinking by encouraging listening; empathy; mutual understanding. And it's the co-construction of hypothesis of what happened to us. There's like two components, there's implication and research. The implication is everybody is implicated to the level he or she wants, with the idea of we all are in a like process of researching process “what happened to us, and what can we do about it?”

In 2019, the group said, “okay, we need to go public, we cannot just stay together and work together. Okay, we are helping each another, we are thinking together, we are healing our common wounds. But it's time for us to go public and to tell the world that this group exists, and that it is possible to be together, to think together and to work together”. There was like a public event which led to more and more public events in schools, in prisons, but in prisons for youths,

IE: Juvenile prisons

RP: juvenile prisons. Those testimonies are made of one person victim of the bombing attack, and one person whose child has left to Syria. So, two people that the history should have torn apart, go together and show the people listening to them that they can be together, they can think together, and they can prevent, do prevention together.

OC: I cannot remember any big clashes for different reasons. First, the people who come, come with kind of an opening.

IE: Yeah, it's a self-selected people, I guess, because who feels like too much antagonism probably isn't participating.

OC: Exactly. Secondly, as you say, there are rules, the rules are not very written, they are not rigid at all, but of course we are careful with each other, with the words that we use. And of course, sometimes we use words that are not exactly appropriate. And Isabelle and Vincent, who animate those groups are there. If they feel that there is something that happened, if someone felt hurt, they would speak during the breaks. During the day, they would speak with that person and then we would talk about it. We would make it an issue. “Okay, why did this hurt? And let's speak about it and let's understand why”

IE: How many hours is every meeting? Is it weekends? Is it in the evenings? How does it work?

RP: It's during the week. It was usually, I think one day per every two months. More or less.

OC: Mostly one day from 9 to 5.

RP: One day.

IE: And where did you get this public space? Was it the local government?

RP: We had no money; we had no budget. So, it's everybody is like, we'll take some from, from his work time, from his holidays, and we would find spots which would be provided for us freely. It's always complicated, but we managed.

OC: It has been sometimes in the municipality that was a public space, but then it was in the workshop of an artist, one time it was in my school. Sometimes it was at your work, Roland. We just find places every time they different.

IE: Were you ever worried that there could be an infiltration by the government to gather intelligence, or somebody was working like an agent almost?

OC: We would have loved this.

RP: Of course.

OC: This would be great if the government was so interested in, what we talk and what we are able to say to each other and to listen to each other. This is exactly what we would have loved.

RP: We have been invited at the parliament on…

IE: I know, I watched the movie. It was very nice. It really explains everything, and there were video shootings of the process. Obviously, you know, safe space is quite important, and some people might feel, especially in this climate of fear and securitisation, scared to participate even or share their opinions or feelings or frustration, so that's why.

OC: Yes, of course I was reacting.

IE: I know, I know.

OC: But you are right, especially for some parents who have still grandchildren in Syria, because there are some negotiations, international, diplomatic. And then of course for those people, they have to be very careful of what they say and how they say and to who they say. So, you are right, we have to be careful, and they are. They know they have to be, but for the group in itself, just what we saybetween us, what can be said can be heard.

RP: Nobody gives his own opinion. We try to work on what is happening inside yourself. What is the emotion you're having, what, what is going on inside when you say this, and then we put this at work.

IE: Please tell us how the group evolved with the trials.

RP: It started end of 2022. That was a bit of delay by one and a half months. The idea was for the group was to be present during this trial because we were thinking that the trial would polarise the society. Again there would be a lot of people who would react to what was going on. We tried to focus on different issues, more like restorative justice initiatives. There were two axis, one was to organising events in parallel to the trial. The idea was to regroup all the actors involved in the trial, and to offer them a space to interact, to share what they were living during this trial. So, we speak about, of course, the people victim, the families, the families of the accused people, the defence lawyers, the prosecutors, the investigators, I mean everybody who had been involved to some certain issues to the trial, and to offer them the space to reflect and react and to share experiences. That was one part.

There were, I think, five events organised, which had a very large success, and then two other issues were more like based inside the Courthouse. I was in charge of putting in place a dialogue space, mediation space for everybody who at some point wanted to get into dialogue with someone else: could be people, victim and lawyers could be families. So, this was just offering the space within the Courthouse, which was kind of very complicated to put in place, because the Courthouse is organised in such where everybody is not very welcome to be there and to organise something inside.

IE: It wasn't like an isolated place just for this trial.

RP: Yes, it was just for the trial.

IE: Okay.

RP: Trial lasted nine months. So, it was a long trial. It was, I think the longest one we ever had in Belgium.

IE: And how many accused are we talking about?

RP: 10 accused, one is dead. So, there were nine accused present. And then the third initiative was to organise restorative justice circles outside the Courthouse for everyone who had been touched by terrorism, and I organized this with another colleague from the group. And so, we had two circles every time with six or seven people, and it was like a process of five encounters. It was like a small Retissons du lien but really for people who had been directly impacted by the terrorism process was a bit different here. It was really a restorative justice process where people would have time to express themselves completely without being intervened, and then we would share together that experience. So, these were the three axis we developed during the trial with the group Retissons du lien. First, we had the group Retissons du lien, its establishment, and the encounters we had every two months.

IE: The first group

RP: That was before the trial, and then together we thought about organising initiatives during the trial. Those three initiatives were, first of all, the events that were organised during the trial outside the Courthouse. The second initiative was mediation space within the Courthouse, and the third initiative were restorative justice circles for people impacted by the terrorism, and who wanted to join this process, so that was during the trial.

IE: Is your group still meeting even after the trial?

OC: We have had some meetings to prepare the events.

RP: Some of the members, they have their own agenda. Some people will write a book, like, for example, Fatima and Sophie. Fatima is the mother of young guy who left to Syria and who really contributed to the IS, and Sophie, her daughter was injured in the bombing attack in the metro in Maalbeek, in Brussels. They wrote a book together. Some of us will organise prevention action in schools together, so I mean, the group is like some kind of an envelope within. People will organise things by themselves.

IE: Because it’s a unique experience and you're focused on prevention. So, you want more people to learn. Even if they don't come, then they can read about it and, share the experience, almost through the actor’s experience.

OC: But also, thanks to the documentary film is already two years old. Yeah, as we were talking about, sharing what we do, as I said, books, events, documentary. We also do animations in schools, and for instance this morning, me as a teacher of course, this is something I can do very easily, is to invite people from Retissons du lien in my school. And this morning we had in front of 55 students, Sandrine and Fatima. Sandrine is a person victim of the attack in Maalbeek. And they came to tell about their own story and about Retissons du lien in front of the students. It is incredible because like the attacks were in 2016, so my students, who are now about 18, 19, 20,

IE: they remember it.

OC: They do remember a little bit, but still, once they have started to talk, for me, it was unbelievable. You could hear the flies fly, it was so quiet, because they speak with their own experience, what they have lived, and both of them have a very specific story. These are two uncommon stories, but what is even more uncommon is that they are together to tell it. And so, they can speak about Retissons du lien, and their message is to say, “if we are able to speak together, to talk together, to respect each other, why would other people not be able to do it?”

IE: Lastly, how do the developments after the trial?in Syria make you feel now?

RP: After the trial, we are still continuing, so the group still work together. We are organizing events. There are three new events that will happen this year in 2025, and some of us also go to prison. We have organised a speech group in prison, where victims of other acts, criminal acts as well, now we are opening up a little bit. We are leaving the terrorism issue to open up to all kind of victims, and all kind of assaults. I mean, in prison, for example, there were seven or eight detained person present, and we were five people from Retissons du Lien. We don't speak about political issues; we don't give our opinions very directly. We try to avoid this because then we fall into discussions, we say “discussion comptoir”, like a discussion you have at the bar or something like this, where everybody tries to give his own opinion and to have its opinion prevail.

IE: This is not a debating society.

RP: It's not debating. We are there to speak about ourselves and what impacts us, as a person, victim, as the mother of the parent of, or as a detained person. What is happening here inside me, when I'm saying this, when I'm hearing you, when I hear your testimony, what is going on? How do I feel about it and how do I want to react about that?

IE: Can we say something that started 12 years ago, changed its course, it started to touch many sections of society. Were you expecting any of that?

RP: I think if you ask Isabelle, when she started, she would had expected to still be there with the group today. She would say “no, I mean, every year you ask yourselves, “do we continue?” Every year you think that it's going to be the last year, and then it's just not possible to stop.

IE: Why not?

RP: Because people need this kind of space. People need to think together, to speak about themselves but also to listen to each other, to share the experience and to think of how can we do better, how can we change the society? I mean, the difference between a speech group and what we do is that here we have an aim of transforming society. We have an aim of putting things into place, of putting action into place, initiatives. We are not just not speaking about ourselves and what happened to us. This is what motivates us, and I think this is the big difference.

OC: I agree.

IE: This experience might have showed you things about your society, your country. Can we be like, finish with a positive mood?

OC: If other people are inspired by the experience of Retissons du lien, this would be great. We would be very happy with that, and that's maybe what we are contributing to. I think there are some other groups in different kinds of situations. And yes let's hope, with a lot of humility, we have remained a small group with no budget, who has done and who is still doing interesting things, and it's nice to know that people are inspired by that. We have no purpose of being multinational.

RP: Of course, if the idea can be spread, this would be great. I mean, this is the aim because the group is very fluctuant. Of course you have a core group, but then you have people coming in, coming out. This is the way it is. This is life. We meet new people who we realise that they have been victims of different issues, and they need to share things. Well, welcome.

OC: And I'm sure Belgium has nothing special about it. I'm sure this can be reproduced anywhere. For me, it's just humanity.

RP: But I think you do have a lot of different initiatives in restorative justice in Ireland, in Spain, in Italy. It's a bit different than restorative justice because we work with what's right rises up directly. We are not having like meetings to prepare the whole thing, bottom up and so. But we can be considered as something close to restorative justice initiative.

IE: Okay, very good. Thank you very much to both of you. I really appreciate your time.

OC: Thank you.

RP: Pleasure Idil, if you can. For me, it has changed my life. The quality of the link we have among ourselves is something incredible. I don't know whether we are friends, but we are linked by something which is much stronger than anything else.

IE: Olenka Czarnocki is a teacher from Belgium. She teaches in a suburb of Brussels in Anderlecht, subjects such as history, philosophy and citizenship. She's civically involved in her community in Belgium and beyond. She's also engaged in peer training, and before all that, she worked for an NGO that fought against poverty. Her Bachelor's degree is in History with an orientation on Contemporary History from University of Leuven, with a Master's degree also in History, from Free University of Brussels.

Roland Prevot is a mediator working on interpersonal conflicts in a Brussels municipality for more than a decade. He's trained in intervention theatre and in leading research groups in clinical sociology. He's an active member of Retissons du lien since 2018, and organised restorative justice initiatives during the trial of Brussels bombing attacks. He also facilitates encounters in prisons between perpetrators and victims.

So that's it for now. If you like this episode, please follow this podcast. It's website that usually has a transcription of the episode. Like it, share it and also please like the excerpts I share in my YouTube channel or in the Instagram account of ‘We Can Find a Way’. ‘We Can Find a Way’ is now in Apple, Spotify and also in YouTube as a podcast. As always, I'd like to close by thanking musician Imre Hadi and artist Zeren Goktan who allowed me to use their music and photograph in the podcast. Thank you and hope to meet you in the next episode.