Living in a Time of Terror

by John Thompson

September, 2001

The purpose of terror is terror. Ultimately, the terrorist -- regardless of ideology, politics or culture -- is an individual and uses terrorism for personal gratification. In effect, the terrorist uses violence to say "Be afraid of me -- I can do this to any of you and none of you can stop me." This also means that the terrorist is someone who badly needs to be able to say this.

The terrorist knows that he generates fear and takes pleasure from it. The terrorist is someone who feels that he must be heroic and important and uses violence as a shortcut to achieve this. The cause that ‘allows’ the terrorist to act is mutable; most of those who would commit terrorism will find a cause of some kind or another. The stated motive is of little consequence.

The Islamicists behind the World Trade Centre bombing believe (somewhere in their forebrains) that they are punishing the US because of its support for Israel, or for propping up Arab governments with which they disagree. Yet if Israel or their perverted view of Islam didn’t exist, they would have bombed somebody for another reason.

There are a number of simple principles that allow ordinary people to fight terrorism... and to make a significant contribution to defeating it. These are the principles:

1) Never show your fear -- and certainly not to the news cameras. Seeing your fear is an emotional reward to a terrorist, it feeds his sense of power.

2) Try to live normally. Don’t change your daily life anymore than you have to; behaving normally is your best revenge.

3) Show grief when it is time to grieve, but remember that the terrorist may also enjoy your emotions. Couple your grief to resolve and determination -- he or she will find this less sweet.

4) Restrain your rage, especially to those from the same background as the terrorist. In fact, the terrorist often hopes that your rage will win new supporters for him. The low-brows who ‘avenge’ the World Trade Centre bombing by harassing Muslims (or Sikhs or Hindus -- a most revealing characteristic) are doing the political work of the terrorist.

5) Do not dwell on the ‘reasons’ for the attack -- fundamentally, there aren’t any. Discussing whatever excuse the terrorist used only feeds his sense of self-importance. Blaming the attack on the limited socialization of terrorists is more accurate and less rewarding to the architects of the attack.

6) Remember that terrorists lie. Lenin argued that the revolutionary must ignore "lesser" truths to advance his "greater" one. Most insurgents lie to wider society, their followers, and to themselves so thoroughly that many of them cannot remember what the truth is.

7) Retain a sense of perspective. No security arrangements are perfect; everything cannot be guarded all the time and nobody is always vigilant. There is always going to be some threat, but trading fundamental freedoms away for an illusion of security is a profound error.

8) Be alert, but don’t be paranoid. For example, every abandoned suitcase or attache case is obviously not a bomb waiting to go off, but you would do well to report in a potential bomb when you see someone deliberately leave an attache case on a subway platform.

9) Remember that terrorists usually have sympathizers who are often skilled political activists with agendas. Communications of the "I-deplore-the-attack-but-understand-why-they-did-it" kind frequently come from such sympathizers. Weigh their statements accordingly.

10) Finally, know that you are far better person than any terrorist. You matured while he remained an angry self-centred child; You developed empathy and compassion while he nursed his rage; and you never convinced yourself that inflicting death and destruction on the innocent is a heroic act.