Fear has become normal and this is a great success of terrorism. And often in the West of the mania for security, fear becomes also hysterical. These days in the U.S. media talk about the man that in Newark airport has committed the horrendous crime of passing a barrier to give a kiss to his fiancee. He managed to do so because the guard was absent, and so panic exploded: someone had breached security.
The airport remained blocked for hours before they understand that the offense was harmless. And after several days of manhunt, the culprit was identified, and now faces up to 30 days in jail. Too little for the damage he has caused, many say. And here we see that fear has become hysteria, security an obsession. The truth is that the man has done nothing wrong, the fault is rather of the absent guard. But he also did not commit such a terrible crime, mistakes are committed by anyone. The CIA itself failed to stop a terrorist ready to blow himselves up, even if they had accurate information from the same father of the boy. The truth that nobody wants to admit is that security does not exist. The terrorists can blow themselves up at any time on ships, buses, trains, subways or just in the street. If a suicide bomber wants to strike it's hard to stop him, and there are no such tyhings as infallible safety measures. Once we'll put body scanners at airports what we've gained? Do we want to place them in every street on the planet?
Israel in fact had never been able to stop terrorism until it has built a wall that completely isolates the Palestinians from the rest of the world. But you can not build a wall around the world, although surely someone would like to.
Ultimately terrorism is a stupid strategy that spread paranoia and hate, but doesn't win its ultimate goals. The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka were the first to use suicide bombers, but gained very little and this year have been defeated. All movements of the 70 European terrorists were defeated. The Palestinians have used terrorism for decades and eventually were completely defeated, too. The same Al Qaeda has not made and will never realize its goal of uniting the whole of Islam against the West, no matter how many attacks will try. Terrorists in fact, killing innocent civilians, prove themselves worse than their enemies and discredit their own cause not only in the public eye in "enemy countries", but also in the eyes of many who might understand some of their reasons, but are disgusted by their means. Terrorists in the end only attract the fanaticals and the desperates, or both, and the availability of such people is not infinite.
Who is the target of terrorism on the other hand cannot really defeat it with security measures and the militarization of society. Terrorism could be prevented with investigations and arrests and by blocking its channels of financing. In addition, to remove the culture medium of terrorism, we should listen to the reasons that it exploits. The West could weaken much Islamic terrorism taking a less aggressive attitude towards the Middle East. Instead it was done just the opposite: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bombing civilians, little pressure on Israel to resolve the Palestinian question. Obama had made a conciliatory speech toward Islam but in fact he goes on with the war.
So the story doesn't change, terrorists from on one side, paranoia, never ending security checks, repression and war on the other side. The world dominated by zealots and fools while ordinary people suffer in the midst of their senseless folly.
Francesco Defferrari
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