Australia woke this morning to the very relieving but sobering news that Victoria Police have foiled plans for a terrorist attack in Melbourne to have been carried out on Christmas Day. Among the locations for it were to have been Federation Square and Flinders Street, both astonishing public spaces (I visited them both in 2011). As pleased and grateful as I am that VP have foiled those plans, it has still made me quite fearful.
For me it brings to mind two international Christmas incidents, one of which became a significant tragedy. Firstly, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988. I'm ashamed to say that was my birth year but more to the point, it caused 270 casualties and extensive property damage; it was the most notable act of modern terrorism worldwide until 9/11. The perpetrator, Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was convicted in 2001 but then released in 2009 on compassionate grounds after a prostate cancer diagnosis; he died in 2012. Then, just before Christmas Day 2009 we learned of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the "Underpants Bomber," who had planned to bomb an American domestic flight. Now I know none of these figures likely celebrate or would have celebrated Christmas given their different faiths, but it has never been the only December holiday or the only religious one. (And I'm an atheist, by the way.)
You may know of the World War I Christmas truce between French, British and German troops on the Western Front in 1914. They dropped their weapons and ideological differences for just one day, in the name of peace and goodwill, so what do you think those men would all say if they saw either of those events, or learned of what was reportedly to transpire in Melbourne on Sunday? If they could call a truce for humanity on such an important date, over a century ago, surely humanity everywhere now can, too. And surely there's no reason not to at least try.
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