The meaning of terror

As the words "terror" and "terrorist" are nowadays used so often, in every newspaper and TV news, the meaning of the word becomes lost. Most people think that "terror" is about suicide bombs, airplanes, and killing lots of people. But in fact the bombs are just a means to an end. And the end is the real "terror", the fear under which we live every day, long after the bombs.

I am going to fly to the USA tomorrow. The chances that the plane that I am on is going to be bombed by terrorists is so low as to be practically non-existant. The risk of dieing in a plane crash, with or without bomb, is statistically much lower than the risk of dieing when traveling the same distance in a car. Nevertheless I will have to be at the airport 4 hours before the plane leaves, due to increased security checks since some terrorists were caught in London with liquid explosives 2 weeks ago. I am not allowed to take any hand luggage, except a transparent plastic bag containing not more than 1 book, 1 journal, my passport and ticket, baby food if I have a baby and am willing to sample the milk to prove it isn't explosive, and medicaments if I can provide a doctor's certificate that I need them. The newspapers said 2 weeks ago that the terror attack had been prevented, but in fact the terrorists were quite successful in scaring everybody. They don't even *need* to blow themselves up for that any more. Even a dimwit like the shoe bomber can cause millions of airline passengers to have to remove their shoes at the security check every day since 5 years now, and counting. Sooner or later somebody will find out how to produce explosive underwear (I'm not going to describe how to do it, but it is surprisingly easy with cotton underwear), and we will all be forced to fly naked. You have to ask yourself at which point the "terror", the fear of an attack, and the negative effects of reacting to that fear, become worse than the possible bomb.

Well, for me that means that I will be travelling light, not taking my laptop. Theft of valuables, especially laptops and iPods, from checked-in baggage has shot through the roof. And if I can't use the laptop during the waiting periods in the different airports, because I had to check it in, there isn't much use taking it anyway. I'll see if I can get access to the internet in the hotel without a laptop, but don't expect too many blog entries this week. I'll be back on Friday.