When the initial hysteria and fear fades, there is a grim sense of repetition. The events this week in Manchester where innocent children were killed were shocking enough but alas they are hardly new.
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Even this week it has been followed by more killing in Jakarta and who knows what new atrocities in Syria. What they have in common is that if our lasting and debilitating reaction is fear and isolating hatred; the terrorists win. The power of terrorism is not in what it does but it is imagined it could do. The acts themselves can be as large and coordinated as 9/111 or as singular and lone-wolf crazed as the narcissistic failure Monis. The impact lies not in their blast but in their emotional repercussions.
It has all been said before. The triumph for Al Qaeda at September 11 was not the tragedy of 3000 innocent people dead but that it could plunge the Middle East into a decade and a half of war and give credence to the fanatical belief that the West is bent on destroying Islam and there is no cohabitation possible under heaven.
Living for a cause is infinitely more difficult and courageous than dying for one. So it is apt that we brand these terrorists as the cowards they are. Having failed to make any kind of mark in a cause for righteousness; the powerful influences of idea, example and improvement to others lives, they turned only to destruction. The secret hope they have is they are not alone and soon to be forgotten. They want as a part of this instilled fear, to suppose there are endless waves of these delusional martyrs waiting to follow.
There can be no surer sign of the slow but steady demise of IS and its Daesh “caliphate’ than they must resort to hapless foreign recruits in place of real soldiers as kamikaze gestures with no strategic benefit. Islamic State may have won the “terror” battle because they seized media attention but despite the individual tragedy the means is wearing thin. Spain has shown it, France has shown it and even Australia, by returning to Bali and reconfirming Indonesia is a valued neighbour and culture, showed it. Reactions of stereotyping hate, bigotry and polarising blame are the hallmarks of the terrorist’s success. But plucky Britain having weathered the fanatical rage in its own parks of the IRA a generation ago and an earlier more demented firestorm unleashed by a Bavarian corporal, will triumph not with guns on the street but in its ability to “keep calm and carry on”.