Are We Letting Terror Take Hold?

Greg Curtain in his article entitled Media, not the judicial system, to blame for soft-on-crime view quotes George Orwell reflecting on how "murders reported in the mass media had certain dramatic and tragic qualities that made them memorable and newsworthy". In this way it's not surprising that various studies such as that by the Australian Psychological Society and the Australian Institute of Criminology report that while official crime statistics show most crimes are non-violent, media reports often suggest the opposite and sensationalise the truth. While it may be no surprise that things in the media are not really as bad as they seem, an article written recently commemorating the 09 September 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta reminds us not of the threat of terrorism we are told is imminent, but that it is important to take a reality check, and to seek effective and meaningful courses of action against the root causes of our fears.  

A story of violence, suffering, determination and unthinkable forgiveness was published recently by the Adelaide Independent news website "In Daily". It was called Bomb Survivor Fights Terror With Humanity and what may be even more remarkable than the powerful story of Sudirman Thalib and his willingness to forgive those who terrorise - those who bombed the Australian embassy in Jakarta ten years ago this month - is the fact this story was published at all, considering the demand for news of the terrible, the horrific, the terrifying and the unrelenting; crimes that force you to reconsider your need to leave the house. Sudirman's story by no means is a bed time tale, in fact he describes looking around him after the bomb went off, seeing people near him dead on the ground and thinking that he himself would die there too. What is extraordinary is that this is not a story to make you fear strangers and public places, instead it illuminates another approach to solving conflict - through compassion, understanding and humanity. It is an article which presents a solution - albeit at the micro level - to what would seem an intractable problem of world wide terrorism.

As a supply and demand industry, perhaps the media is not to blame for the atmosphere of fear - the constant terror, violence and crime updates on the news. Maybe we want to hear stories of intractable conflict, of martyrs and victims - surely it only sells because we buy it?

Does this mean we are responsible for what we read in the news? If this is the case - does this mean we are letting terror take hold?