News from Glasgow

So anyhow. Making breakfast on Sunday morning I heard the news from Glasgow. Which was a bit of a shock. Seeing that car on fire crashed into a place so familiar - that I have been to so many times. And the places like Houston and Paisley hospital all across the Australian news. It's all pretty horrible. I'm so glad no innocent people were hurt there or in London.

It makes me a little bit more frightened though. Not of the terrorists - because, horrible as these attacks are, the likelihood of being caught up in them is pretty small. You might be badly inconvenienced or feel that it's all a little close to home, but the chance of actually being in the firing line is still minimal. But, I know what some people are like. Glasgow has enough divisions on the grounds of religion - it doesn't need any more.

The terrorists actions are small potatoes compared to what people can do to their own country when they start turning on one another. You might think it could never happen to us, but that's what my Serbian friend thought too.

The doctor who was detained in Australia yesterday in connection with the attacks has been all across the news here too. (Politicians here are already a bit edgy as Bush visits here later on in the year). And last night an Egyptian man was attacked by a number of men whilst having a quiet pint in a pub in Sydney, after having been been subjected to aggressive questioning by them on whether he was a terrorist or not.

I'm not scared of the terrorists. If someone is that hell bent on killing an innocent person and I end up in the firing line, there isn't much I can do about that. They're not going to stop me living my life.

I am scared of stupid, bigoted people on all sides who will use this as an excuse to justify their hatred of other people based on race, religion, whatever. And of the people who would have our basic privacy rights taken away 'for our own protection'. They're the people that can really screw up our society and our freedom.