Recent terrorist acts bear a sinister common hall mark. Responsibility for the bomb in Atlanta, for a bomb on the Moscow metro, for the downing of TWA flight 800 (if it was an act of terrorism) and, at home, for the blast at the Killyhevlin Hotel in Fermanagh, has not been admitted by any individual or organisation. No political capital has been sought and no demands have been made. Devastating explosions have cost the lives of innocent people they have been followed by a menacing silence.
Another common thread in this violent tapestry is that the events have occurred at times and in places that ensured the greatest publicity. The world's media had gathered for the Olympics just as they had in varying degrees, for Russia's presidential elections and for developments in the Northern Ireland peace process. Silence amid the din of unprecedented media coverage adds a new dimension to the phenomenon of indiscriminate murder and maiming Alarm at the fallibility of even the strictest security measures is compounded by one of the most powerful of human emotions fear of the unknown. The terror factor is magnified.
At times like this people look for leadership and in the most recent case they have not looked in vain. The International Olympic Committee acted swiftly and with dignity in announcing that the Games would continue any other course would have given the unknown bombers a considerable victory. President Clinton, just as he had done in case of Flight 800, gave a measured response in which calmness in the face of adversity was mixed with firmness in the face of an attack on one of world's great open societies.
The freer, the more open, a society is, the harder freedoms are diminished in the name, of security, the terrorists can claim success. In today's United States radio talk shows spew out a new doctrine of hatred a malicious hostility towards minorities combined with deep antipathy to the very state which fosters such freedom of expression. The nature of the device planted at Centennial Square in Atlanta and, the content of a telephoned warning have led investigators to believe that the deaths and injuries may have been the work of right wing extremists who form many of the militia movements and to whom the talk shows have given a sense of solidarity.
The United States is just beginning to come to terms with home town terrorism, a phenomenon which countries in Europe and elsewhere have had to endure for a considerable time. Its immediate reaction to recent events shows maturity and responsibility. Pressures to limit the openness of US society, to limit freedom of expression, are likely to fail. A revulsion at the ideology promulgated, by many of the radio hosts, a falling off of their all important popularity ratings, would have a far stronger effect than heavy handed action. That other freedom the right to bear arms, so relentlessly promoted over the air waves, is a more questionable concept and more open to legitimate interference from the state.