Imagining “a world beyond disorder”

March 2016 was an eventful time to be in Brussels: within a handful of days, Salah Abdeslam was arrested in Molenbeek in connection with the November 2015 Paris attacks, the European Union agreed a package of migration measures with Turkey, and the Zaventem airport and Maalbeek metro station were bombed. It just so happened that I was visiting Brussels for the first time, and for the rather apropos (if more uplifting) purpose of attending the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ (GMF) flagship annual conference, The Brussels Forum.