We are certainly living in an age now where on the one hand we can be grateful that there are no real wars or world wars such as our grandparents and perhaps our great grandparents experienced, but where terrorism is now on the increase.  The truth is, relative to any other period in human history we are the lucky ones.   We live in a time which is safer than any other, but we would like to make it safer still.  As democracy has flourished around the world and as human rights have exploded and people have demanded more open societies that are no longer dictatorships or police states, terrorists have taken advantage of that.  The simple fact of the matter is that terrorists operate best and are most successful in open societies.  In other words, a society where a policeman cannot just stop you while you march down the street and demand, for no good reason, to search you, what you are carrying and whatever is in your car.  

We value our individual freedoms but it is certainly those freedoms that are now leading to the rise of the terrorist attacks which we have seen around the world.  The more free your country is, the more likely one is to be attacked.  It is sad that these radical terrorists use our open societies to try and force on us their brutal philosophies.  Doctrines where women have no rights, must wear veils, can be raped as young as 12 or 13 and primitive justice systems which involve chopping off hands, public executions and when you are not slitting people’s throats on the beach, burn them in public squares.  We must bear in mind, as horrible as all these attacks are and as much as the whole world has to focus on getting rid of these terrorists, the real risks are still the same. 

By that same I mean people who smoke are still going to die in much bigger numbers every day from cancer and heart disease, than from terrorism, and if you want to talk South Africa approximately 40 people die a day on our roads and about 45 people are murdered in violent crime.  One always has to think of that when you hear of the latest shooting or the latest explosions somewhere around the world.  Long before you should worry about flying on a plane you should worry that a full aeroplane load of people are killed on South Africa’s roads every week and more than that are murdered in violent crime.  One must be very careful before we focus on the sensational – the mass shooting, the rogue alligator, etc, before we focus on those things that can and should be reduced more effectively in South Africa.  Policing and better road safety could go a long way towards reducing those causes of death in South Africa and which are far more likely than being attacked in Kruger Park by a crocodile or having the misfortune to be the victim of a terror attack.