It has been written before, quite correctly, that a key strategy in dealing with the terrorist threat is national resilience. And one part of developing such resilience is language. The wrong choice of words can unnecessarily inflame or sensationalise a situation. Conversely, rational and thoughtful language can put contemporary issues into perspective and build resilience.
Earlier this week on the Ten Network current affairs program The Project, host Waleed Aly, addressing the Sonia Kruger 'controversy', described himself as scared, afraid for his country and terrified about what the fear of terrorism was doing to friends and family. But this earnest confession was simply another example of the way our socially-mediated society has made words such as 'scared' and 'terrified' rather meaningless.
I say this based on events both one century ago and half a century ago. One hundred years ago this week the 5th Division of the 1st Australian Imperial Force lost more than 1900 dead and 3500 wounded in one day. I can only imagine what terrifying thoughts were going through their minds as they climbed over the top of the trench and into the withering machine gun fire from German forces. And I can only imagine what Australian society did to cope with this national tragedy.
Fifty years ago next month the late Corporal Philip Dobson was on the battlefield in South Vietnam treating wounded Australian soldiers, the other medics in D Company 6th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment either dead or wounded. With New Zealand artillery fire crashing around him and incoming fire from the Viet Cong shredding the rubber plants around him, he must have been very, very scared.
Rather than deciding which television personality had a right to be scared and to what degree, The Project could have used the events of a century ago at Fromelles to put the terrorist threat into perspective, and the efforts of Corporal Dobson half a century ago to put the concept of fear into perspective. Because the program was focused on the concerns of two media personalities, an excellent opportunity was lost to use a high-rating television show to help build societal resilience by referring to times when real fears were overcome and real resilience was required.
I wonder what the men of the 5th Division or the rain-soaked soldiers of D Company would have thought of television personalities describing their fears as a result of a terrorist attack that occurred over 10,000 km away, or how the Australian public was able to cope with the death and wounding of 5500 Australians in 24 hours. The currency of fear has certainly been degraded since that time.