As we woke to news of the London attack on Thursday many of us turned our minds to people we knew who were there.
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As we opened our Facebook feeds first thing in the morning, many of us were confronted by posts from friends marking themselves as safe.
We also began thinking about terrorism and the way it stoked our fears with the random nature of its execution. Anyone at any time could be a victim when a mundane object like a car was used as a weapon.
This fear is the very objective of terrorists. They want to terrorise and with our saturation coverage of their atrocities we unwittingly help them achieve their goals.
We allow ourselves to be terrorised.
Imagine if we called out the act for what it is really is: murder.
We criminalise the deed and disempower it. We remove that scary mystique that is attached to the word “terrorism”. We excise the political dimension.
It would be hard to call yourself a martyr when your target regards your atrocity as “criminal” rather than “act of terror”.
The man accused of causing even more mayhem in Melbourne when he ran down pedestrians was not a terrorist. He stands accused of murder and will be tried for that. He will in no way cast a political shadow over his act.
If convicted, he will spend the rest of his life in relative anonymity in some dank prison.
Terrorism is a performance act whose endgame is generating fear. Fear, in turn, leads to division, social upheaval, the tightening of laws and the creation of discomfort.
The mass media is the stage on which terrorists want to maximise the drama they create.
This creates a dilemma for news outlets. They have a duty to report the news but should avoid the temptation to sensationalise it.
Lurid, highly emotive headlines might get the audience in, but they also act as a force multiplier for terrorists.
Lessen the drama and you reduce the fear. Reduce the fear and you take power back from the people attempting to terrorise you.
That old post-911 message – Be Alert But Not Alarmed - was ridiculed by many but actually holds true.
The reality is more of us will die from cancer or road accidents than at the hands of terrorists. We should never lose sight of this perspective.