Be A Man

A word of advice to terrorists from The Guardian's Charlie Brooker:

"If you're hell-bent on wiping us out, at least put some effort into it. Arm yourself with nothing but a frying pan and a saw, and if you manage to score a bodycount in double figures, then maybe I'll respect you. Otherwise, up yours. You're boring.

"Bombs are equally lazy. There's nothing you can do about a bomb going off, short of psychically foretelling the blast and running away. There's no sport to it. I'm getting bored of being frightened of bombs. Give me something new to fret about. Here's an idea: an ankle-height laser beam that sweeps across densely populated concourses in the blink of an eye; a sheet of light slicing everyone's feet off simultaneously. Imagine the chaos! It'd be more humane too, since there's a good chance you could surgically re-attach the feet later - although matching each foot to its rightful owner would be a logistical nightmare. Chances are you'd end up with a size 10 and a size three. Still, it'd break the ice at parties.

"Actually, even foot removal is too violent. The thing I don't grasp about terrorism is why it has to involve violence at all. Detonating a gigantic bag of manure in a crowded space would make the same point far more eloquently - and the victims would still be around to put pressure on the government to do something to ease the crisis. Indiscriminate slaughter isn't just barbaric and selfish - it's immature and idiotic. Any budding terrorists reading this now: toss those detonators in the bin and try being man enough to change people's minds via some other method for once. Girls will respect you. Only wankers kill people. Whether you're a head of state or a disgruntled fanatic, the moment you get blood on your hands, you've become a massive wanker.

"Come to think of it, that's how the news should be reported. "Thirty people were killed today when a massive wanker blew himself up in a busy marketplace" has quite a ring to it, as does "President Wanker", or "Prime Minister Wanker". In fact, why doesn't every bloodthirsty cretin prolonging this sorry dispute simply paint the word "Wanker" on their forehead and piss off to a remote island somewhere, where they can fight it out with pans and saws while the rest of us settle our differences using non-violent means? We've got the imagination to succeed. What've they got? Hairy palms and firearms, and that's about it."

Seriously though, Charlie has a point here, even if he didn't really intend it. Terrorism, as the name says, is all about terror. The bad guys are willing to be seen as bloodthirsty killers so long as they get their intended response by scaring the hell out of us. What happens if we simply don't let them scare us? What if we actually kept these atrocities in perspective?

We may not be able to stop the terrorists from attacking us, at least not right away, but we can refuse to give them what they're after. In doing that we might, just might, deter the other group that feeds at the trough of terrorism - our own politicians.