By Andrea Günter

Do we take IS-terrorists for religious, spiritual people? How can we criticize them and their relationship to religion without throwing suspicion on Muslims, or religions as a whole; but also without denying that their actions are somehow connected to religion?

The attacks in New York, Madrid, London, Paris – do they represent a new kind of politically motivated violence? Do they act on the principle of publicity, as the newspapers are telling us? And if one agrees with this idea, what is the opposing principle? Do we have to consider a struggle between the public and the private spheres? How is such a struggle connected to our western cultures? Do these cultures fail because we need new ways of connecting the public and the private?

The private is political, how can this reply by the women’s movement to the private-public-dualism be useful for the analysis of Islamist terror attacks? How can the private be a political force? In addition, what more can we understand of the connections between femininity and terrorism?