Don’t let fears of terrorism overcome empathy

Dear DM168 readers,

Iam writing from above the clouds on a plane heading for Cape Town to attend one of our quarterly Daily Maverick leadership off-site get-togethers.

I am feeling a bit anxious about leaving behind my partner and two sons in Gauteng this weekend, as the US issued a terror alert warning its citizens of a terrorist attack “targeting large gatherings of people” in the greater Sandton area of Johannesburg.

As reported by my colleague Peter Fabricius, our government has played down the alert, but other countries, among them the UK and Australia, have warned their citizens to keep away from big gatherings.

I really hope this warning turns out to be untrue, not just because of my fear for the safety of my family and all my fellow Gautengers, but also because one of the prime suggested targets, according to my colleagues at TimesLIVE, is the Gay Pride march in Sandton. Why would anyone want to bomb or shoot up a joyous celebration of the right to love whomever we wish?

A terror attack on the march would be an attack on this hard-won right, feed the haters and roll us back into the closets of the Dark Ages.

The UK warning noted that the threat could emerge from individuals who may have been inspired by terrorist groups, including Daesh, also known as Islamic State. As Fabricius wrote in an article for the Institute of Security Studies, the growing assertiveness of Islamic State in the brutal insurgency in Mozambique’s north and South Africans’ involvement in helping to counter the insurgency have made our country a target.

Today’s global exclusive front-page story by Rebecca Davis was researched and investigated over the past few weeks, long before we caught wind of this terror threat.

Davis has discovered several South African women and children trapped in camps in northeast Syria, where almost 60,000 people have been detained since the collapse of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in 2019.

The women and children have been detained because they are believed to be Islamic State jihadists or their relatives. Davis’s investigation, however, shows that many of the women in the camps are victims of trafficking and that most of the South Africans abandoned in these life-threatening conditions are children.

We do not know how these women and children landed in a Syrian hellhole, but we do know that the only humane thing is for Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor to get them home. I hope we do not let our fears triumph over our empathy.

Yours in defence of truth, Heather