I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Terrorism. If one were being cynical, one might think that the ill-conceived ‘War on Terror’ was nothing more than a marketing ploy on behalf of the arms trade, with the ultimate aim being to keep volatile situations unstable to perpetuate weapon sales. It’s obvious that a war on terror is unwinnable – you can’t declare war on a concept. May as well declare war on smoke, or time. Perhaps a war on quarks? Or Donald Duck?

The whole point of terrorism is to promote terror. To make people so afraid of you they’ll do exactly what you want. So if we’re too scared of an attack to see people as people first, before all other things like, in this case, religion or skin colour, and, acting on that fear, we refuse to help humans in dire need of our help, or actively seek to hurt (or terrify?) those of a similar religion or skin colour, then, logically, they’ve already won and we’ve already lost.

On the other hand, if we continue to recognise that grouping people together and giving them a label is always the first step on a dark path to dehumanising a whole section of our society, then we’ll never be beaten. That path did not end well the last time it was travelled. It’s fine to be afraid. I’m afraid. But I’ll tell you something. I may be afraid of weirdos with guns murdering gig-goers to impress their made-up god, but I’m much more afraid of a popular Presidential candidate assuming that banning everyone who happens to worship that same made-up god from his country will actually help the situation, while at the same time proposing a wall to keep Mexicans out.

All I can really take from the fuckery that passes for the world stage at the moment is that people make absolutely no sense at all.