I have lived in two cities (London and Colombo) which have been heavily targeted by terrorists. Bombs twice went off somewhere I was going to. I have once been close enough to see serious injuries. I have always regarded it as a duty to to simply carry on with life as normal, and I still regard this is the best way to deal with terrorism.

Terrorism is a means by which small groups with limited resources can cause serious disruption and gain wide publicity. As their aim is to disrupt our lives, we can best defeat them by not allowing our lives to be disrupted.

The media to a large extent collaborate with terrorists by giving them the coverage they desire. This also strengthens the disruption by causing fear. Less media coverage would help, as this is unlikely (there is good money for the media in covering terrorism).

We should not allow are selves to be frightened. There is really no need to be. Terrorists very rarely cause much actual damage. This may seem unfeeling towards those who have been murdered, and I would not seek to deny the tragedy. It is, however a smaller tragedy than those we take for granted. The loss of over fifty lives in the recent London bombings shook Britain, but compare this against:

• Approximately 3,500 people killed in road accidents in Britain each year.
• 3,500 suicides annually in Britain. Suicide surely has to be regarded as the most tragic form of death.
• 300+ murders every year

That’s right the terrorists are trying to frighten us by killing so few people that it does not even have much of an impact on the overall number of murders!

These numbers are also argue against the actions of governments who wish to curtail our civil liberties to (supposedly) make us safer from terrorism. If we can sacrifice thousands of lives each year for the convenience of using cars, surely we should also be willing to sacrifice a far smaller number to preserve our fundamental liberties. Millions of people died in the past (and continue to do so in repressive countries) to create and defend those liberties. Are we so much more cowardly than them that we can not sacrifice a far smaller number of lives?

The sacrifices made in the past make the numbers terrorists killed look even smaller. Millions died in the second world war (and what war qualifies better as a war to defend freedom?). In London during the Blitz, hundreds or thousands of civilians were killed each single night, and the eventual death toll in London was close to thirty thousand: but it still remained a functioning city.

The same applies to major natural disasters such as the Asian tsunami. Our reaction to that is a good example of what our reaction to terrorism should be. We should react if we can do something useful, we should show respect for the dead, but unless we are directly affected we should not let it chance our lives.

Of course there are those who should not ignore terrorism. The police officers investigating terrorist attacks, for example. Most of us can not do anything constructive, other than carry on with our normal lives and and thereby prevent terrorists from achieving their aim.