Yet, I am not afraid. Why am I not afraid? Well, multiple reasons, really. All of them about as important.
The moment I change my life, more than what is temporarily needed to account for the circumstances at hand (I was well prepared to walk the last 5 miles in to the office yesterday, it was a pleasant day and a bit of exercise can't hurt, can it), I have given them a small victory and I am not prepared to do that. It might help that there was a couple of random bombs, set of by random nutters, in the area where I grew up. Nothing organised, really (there was one nutter who was, by my definitions, a terrorist, he was setting up bombs in, on or near sports centres with a goal of making Stockholm back down from its bid to gain the Olympics; he did, however, not succeed).
I call being prepared to go to slight discomfort, temporarily, because something I normally rely on is not there due to an atrocity, big or small, having caused a disruption of normal life. I am not 9and I think you shouldn't be either) to give up more than that on a permanent basis, because of a fear that simlar atrocities will happen again. If the society we live in shows that it is willing to bend to the will of them, there is nothing to discourage them from doing this again. And again. And again.
I think the big tragedy here is that them probably believe that what they are doing is a good deed. Well, OK, not necessarily good in and of itself, but a deed done for a greater good. That their actions is excused by their goal. That their goal is a "better world" (at least according to their view).
That tends to be the picture I get from some of the big European terror organisations of the past. The Bader-Meinhof gang (the Rote Armee Fraktion) did what they did to cause the German government to become overtly fascist, in a bid to cause an uprising from the German people and usher in a People's Republic. they were aware that what they were doing was a temporary bad thing, but the Cause was so good that no matter what shotr-term damage they did, it was excusable by the Good that would be caused by it. It didn't work. Thanks to the German police, they were eventually rounded up, put to trial, found guilty and imprisoned. They were not martyred, so their image is not as usable for inspiring a second generation (it's more sexy saying "she died for the cause" as opposed to "she was jailed for the cause").
Where was I? Oh, yes, I had a point. Put these things behind you. It classifies squarely in the folder marked "shit happens". If you let yourself live in fear, they have won. Have a beer. Watch footy on the telly. Go to museums. Demonstrate for the anarchist cause. Watch out for suspicious packages, because it costs so little. But, don't fear. It's no more dangerous than crossing the street. Really.
Ingvar Mattsson, not afraid
This is one of Ingvar's essays.
This is one of Ingvar's essays