None of us love terrorists. A few of us study and admire warfare and revolutionary spirit and history and daring battles, but that doesn't match actual facts on the ground. War is 1% heroism and 99% death, destruction, scorched earth for causes nobody can remember. Terrorists are 100% ruthless killers that will stop at nothing.
This however does not mean that we as a society should change our lives to suit the agenda of the terrorist. The theory of terrorism clearly aims to achieve maximum media blitz, because the terrorist wishes to recruit at home. More blitz, more willing immatures to the cause.
If you are reporting on terrorism, as I am today, you are part of the problem not the solution. Slice the lifeline of international media attention, kill the thrill. Cut the media buzz, there will be no global endorsement of the worthiness of the terrorist's pathetic message.
No worthy cause, no local hillbilly to take up arms.
The response of an intelligent society is to suppress that media blitz and get on with our life.
In particular I refer to the Londoners in 7/7 who walked home. Without fuss. Without complaint. Without media demands for war, vengance, invasion of some random country. Without caring that nobody much remembers that day.
I was in London that day, due to meet someone near Tavistock square. But I slept in.
Which was how it was: we did not respond.
Londoners have their memories. Many died. But we did not respond. The English have seen it all before and no amount of terrorism was going to cause a response from the people. Much the same all across the continent, Europeans understand the balance - it's a police business, and for the rest of us, we do not respond.
First day I was in Madrid back in 1991 or so, there were three ETA bombings. I saw the smoke from my 4 star hotel window and wondered. The Spanish have seen it all and they did not respond.
I do not refer to the British authorities who bought into the whole USA control-by-fear-of-terrorism agenda. It was you that the Brexiters voted against. And, for all the controls, costs, spying, economic exclusion, false positives, what do you have to show?
I was at the infamous JFK airport terrorist incident in New York, in the height of terromania in USA. In our thousands, we ran out of terminals onto the tarmac and camped under planes. To panicked people, I explained why we were totally safe - "no they can't shoot us because we just run further out to the airfield." Stay here, and do not respond. You are safe.
The Kenyan people aren't going to be effected by the Dusit attack. Nairobi as a people weren't effected by the Westgate attack, that I saw, and I was there in Nairobi at the time.
The Kenyans did not respond.
Not because Kenyans are insensitive or dumb or unaware. To the contrary - what Kenyans were effected by was political disaster of 2007, in which 2000 or more people died. Kenyas were marked by 2007, deeply. If there is anything that Kenyans remember of Westgate, it was the political backstory of Westgate - the army's response. The cynicism runs deep in Kenya, and it seems that the army did not shoot the police in this new Dusit event. Progress.
Do not respond.
The smarter society analyses the risks. Nairobi is a city of 3 million people or so, which means about 100 die on a given day. The people of Nairobi, and any large city, can only be effected by much larger numbers dying, OR by mainstream media spruiking a panic.
The smarter society does not respond to mainstream media.
Authorities everywhere would be smart to recognise that the agenda of fear only goes so far before they create their own revolution.
We, society are watching. Don't make us respond, because we will respond to something closer to the truth than you want.
Posted by iang at January 29, 2019 02:18 AM