‘Be alert but not alarmed’ no longer cuts it as Tony Abbott talks up the Islamic terror threat

IT was a stroke of brilliance. John Howard told us to be ‘alert but not alarmed’. A decade on, Tony Abbott wants us to be scared witless. Here’s why things have changed.

OPINION: We are much more afraid of becoming terror victims today than we were 14 years ago when that generation of extremists had our people and our culture in its sights.

It’s not just because of the 2015 terrorists are a different, badder bunch.

In significant part it’s the difference between “alert but not alarmed” and “They’re coming after us” — between the leadership styles of John Howard and Tony Abbott.

From 2001 to 2005, hundreds of Australians died in terrorist atrocities and our troops were sent into long and painful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There were times just over a decade ago when Australia seemed the global focus of Islamic extremist hatred. Cowardly Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, and the 2004 attack on our Jakarta embassy were seen as confirmation.

Yet the current public agitation in the face of the Islamic State menace is much greater. The disruption to our lives — from our politics to our TV programs — is more widespread.

The fear factor is more vivid now than when al-Qaeda was sending hijacked jets into the heart of New York in 2001.

The circumstances are different of course. Islamic State is a slick, well funded movement of deranged butchers who know how to harness digital communication for recruitment and propaganda.

Tony Abbott has warned ‘they are coming for us’.

Al-Qaeda was a grumpy bunch of lethal fanatics who operated from Tora Bora holes in the ground.

There is no need to send aircraft into the Twin Towers to attract attention to a demented cause. A primitive act like a beheading — carried out by murderers who don’t risk their own lives — can be spread on the internet to great effect.

And the digital reach of Islamic state means misguided young people could be plotting symbolic public executions or planning to enrol with IS to learn how to commit those murders.

The Lindt Cafe tragedy showed IS is inspiring the crazy as well as the misguided. Our security agencies are taking this seriously and taking no chances. The process of meticulously mounting a case against a suspects is now a luxury. While the Ts are being crossed, the killings could be

underway.

So there is indeed a threat and it involves us all. But the same applied from 2001.

Prime Minister John Howard, dubbed the Man of Steel by US President George Bush, didn’t flinch from fighting the enemy at home and abroad. But he also fought panic.

Mr Howard had a simple motto, as understated as himself: Be alert, not alarmed. It’s brilliance was the danger was acknowledged but so was the need to get on with our lives.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, by contrast, wants us more than alert. He wants us frightened.

“This illustrates yet again, as far as the Daesh death cult is concerned, they’re coming after us,” Mr Abbott said after the weekend’s bloody IS attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait.

“We may not feel like we are at war with them, but they are certainly at war with us.”

That suits Mr Abbott’s sense of being the warrior in combat, but not Mr Howard’s priority of defiant normality.

Originally published as ‘Be alert but not alarmed’ no longer cuts it as Tony Abbott talks up the Islamic terror threat