911 Terrorist Attacks. 2015 Paris Terror Attacks. 2016 Belgium Serial Bombing Terror. Without doubt, all three of these events and many other terrorist attacks that have occurred around the world have given rise to global fear and grief. Being scared of the thought of merciless terror is a natural response. However, we should not stay confined to that particular emotion. We must move on and look beyond our fears to seek for a way to prevent and counteract terrorism in the aftermath of these cruel and saddening events. 

Some may think that preventing terrorism is as easy as enacting powerful and coercive anti-terrorism acts. France and England have been in the frontier in declaring war against terrorism and enacted strong counter-terrorism laws. For instance, the French government has passed a law stating that its policemen were free to ransack the homes and properties of those suspected of being involved in a terrorism act. 

However, many people have raised concerns over these strong anti-terrorism laws: Is not the government becoming too big? Strangely the coercive anti-terrorism acts are too similar to the measures adopted by Germany during World War II and those of Russia during its Communist Revolution. Everyone knows what those measures resulted in; it was not pretty. If the government is able to wield too much authority, who could hope to stop them? 

One thing we must not forget, though, is that in the case of the Belgium Bombing Terrors, the Belgium government was criticized because of its un-authoritativeness. Indeed, measures against terrorism fundamentally clash between two values as follows: security versus protection of privacy.

Thus the questions are as follows: what do we do in the face of terrorism? Should we make the government stronger and give it the power to intervene in people’s privacy? Or should we stay vigilant but value individual privacy more? It seems that all this time we have been regarding these two—privacy and security—as mutually exclusive values. We have been forced, whether we like it or not, to give up one in order to achieve the other. However, this is where the problem starts. Why are we not thinking of a way to pursue both? Why must we always give up one? 

As possible terrorist threats keep frightening us, we must overcome our fear and look for a reasonable solution that can bring an end to terrorism and at the same time protect private lives. Of course, finding the balance between two values shall not be easy; however, it is worth a try. In order to be on the right track of anti-terrorism, governments ought to start from the basics. 

One good solution and starting point is to get the public involved in the fight against terrorism. People can be informed of and educated on the actual risks, and learn what to do when they are actually put in a life-threating situation. Some Scandinavian countries endorse the notion that every adult member of a community should play a role in civil defense. This is one good example of how people are actively involved in the fight against terrorism and thus can have lower anxiety about it.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the anxiety people feel around the world has reached its peak. Terror is not something that happens on TV shows—it is real and it is still out there consistently threatening us. We should fear, we absolutely should, but that does not mean we should be held back by that emotion; we should search for a way that we can fight back against it, and that counter-measure should be a way that can embrace the two most important values so deeply rooted in our society—security and privacy. 

저작권자 © The Granite Tower 무단전재 및 재배포 금지