Coping with terror - A balanced response to threats

The terror attacks on New York almost 12 years ago hardened attitudes on security in a way that very often jars with the expectations of those happy to live in, or visit, a free, tolerant and open society.

The 9/11 atrocities also meant new, far more stringent protocols at airports, especially those with direct services to America. It would be dishonest to pretend that these measures, no matter how unavoidable, have not made air travel even more trying than heretofore. These impositions, like it or not, are victories for terrorism. Nevertheless, they are a small price to pay for living in an inclusive democracy where an individual’s beliefs are not seen as a reason to persecute or murder them.

The Madrid train bombings two years and six months later, blamed on radical Islamists by the Spanish government, accelerated the intensification of security in countries that might be loosely described as members of the western alliance of democracies. Those al-Qaeda-inspired explosions killed 191 people and wounded 1,800.