Dropping our defences: Weakness is an invitation to our enemies

Very few European nations are as familiar as we are with domestic terrorism but even here the passage of time makes it easier to forget or at least to look away from our toxic history of tit-for-tat murder and carnage. 

Time acts as a poultice, or at least it should. The devastating impact of the anti-democratic atrocities is fading from popular memory. We hope to forget because to remember is still too difficult, still too painful. On this island, Kipling’s enduring valediction used to honour the dead of two world wars — “Lest We Forget” — is more often used as a provocation rather than as a comfort.