If anyone woke up Saturday morning and was shocked to hear that 17 people had been arrested in connection with an alleged terrorist plot aimed at Canadian targets, they’ve obviously been living on a different planet for quite a while.
We’ve long been warned that Canada was a target. We are, after all, at war. It was simply a matter of when, not if.
What is disturbing, though, is that the alleged plot wasn’t hatched by sinister terrorists who had somehow sneaked into our country from abroad bent on unleashing death and destruction. Rather, the accused are all Canadians, with at least some of them living in nice homes in affluent neighbourhoods.
They are next-door neighbours. People you might have gone to school with, or now work with. Someone you might have seen at the local playground, or sit beside in a bar or restaurant.
Of course, that’s what makes terrorism so insidious—and so difficult to fight.
The terrorists win when people are afraid to ride the subway, go to their high-rise office building, or take in a sporting event. They win when people become suspicious of their neighbour, or vent their anger through vandalism and hatred because of someone’s ethnic background.
We must remember Canada is a target as much because we are a tolerant, multicultural society than for our actions in the war on terror in Afghanistan or the Persian Gulf.
And it is precisely those societal values we so treasure and defend that must never be lost no matter how hard terrorists try to destroy them.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
