While on holiday last week, I was totally out of touch with the news in Britain and abroad. So on returning to Britain on Sunday evening, the dramatic events of recent days came as quite a shock. I returned home to a Britain where once more an attempt had been made to bomb the capital; where the police are following a policy of shoot-to-kill, and where an innocent man died as a result of this. The Home Secretary is pushing for the creation of new offences, while the Police are calling for greater powers to act against terrorists.
Against this backdrop, how should we react? As our liberties are chipped away at in the name of safety, is this a sacrifice we must inevitably make in these dark times? How can we defeat terrorism?
These terrorists wish to destroy many of the things we hold dear, such as our liberty our freedoms and our democracy. Stand firm, and there is no way they can succeed. Live in fear, and there is every chance they will succeed. The threat to our lives is from terrorists such as these bombers. The threat to our liberties and our way of life is from how the politicians and those in power choose to react to this threat. If in attempting to fight terrorism, we give up the very freedoms and liberties we seek to defend, we have already lost.
I want leaders who will promise me liberty before they will promise me safety. Any promise of perfect safety is an empty promise, but the promise of preserving our liberties is one that our rulers have it in their power to keep. Life is fragile, and there are those who seek to destroy it. This has been the human condition throughout history, and we must recognise and accept that. It is good and proper to seek to improve our lot, but we in Western society have long laboured under the delusion that we can perfect out lot. Perfect safety, perfect protection, perfect control is not possible, and any attempt to achieve it is on the dangerous path to totalitarianism.
When death and destruction comes, as in life it inevitably does in many and various forms, we must weep for those who have died, mourn with those who have been bereaved, and carry on in courage and hope and boldness. Let us honour those innocents who have died at the hands of evil men by carrying on bravely with our lives, rather than letting ourselves be ruled by fear and terror. The passing of new laws and the creation of no offences merely to be seen to be doing something is to let fear control our actions. To curtail our freedoms in a probably vain attempt to prevent atrocoties like the London bombing is to give in to terror. This will not do.
However, it is not to give in to terror to seek to ensure we are doing nothing to provoke terrorism. The evil of those who fight against us does not negate our responsibility to act rightly and wisely, with fairness and justice in the world. The Western world is undoubtedly guilty of misusing its power on many occasions. This does not justify the atrocities perpetuated by fanatics who see Western society as nothing but corruption and decadence. But we must recognise this: what we sow in greed, injustice and arrogance, we will reap in a harvest of blood and hatred and terror.
The real way to defeat the power of terrorism is by refusing to be terrified. Let’s pull together as communities in solidarity and in kinship to deny the power of terrorism. Rather than using the illusive, ever-changing threat of terrorism to justify moves that take us ever closer, however well-intentioned our leaders might be, to a police state, we must fight terror and hatred with hope and love. This must be our mantra: Stand firm, be bold, and live in liberty.
Tags: Politics Current affairs Terrorism
