The terrorists have won.

The above statement would probably be the subject of George W. Bush’s worst nightmares, but sadly, it is a reality that we live with in Toronto every day. Our terrorists, however, are not from outside our borders: they don’t fly planes into buildings or live in caves in Central Asia. The terrorists in Toronto are those who perpetuate armed violence from within our own communities; they are the individuals who feel that firing a gun or harming another person is the best way to assert whatever little control they can over a chaotic environment.

These terrorists can’t be found by checking bags at an airport. Instead, they instill the worst kind of terror: fear of ourselves and the people around us. In the past few months, Toronto has witnessed an explosion in violent armed crimes, and the effect on our communities is evident. A family that has been living in Jamestown for years are now contemplating selling their house because the neighborhood “isn’t safe.” A young high school student just crossed York University of her list of applications because her friends told her it was “too dangerous” to go to school near the Jane and Finch area. A young child wasn’t allowed to go to his friend’s birthday party because he lived in Malvern and “bad things happen there.” We have become victims to a culture of fear where the perpetrators have paralyzed us through simply making us feel insecure.

Everyone has their own reasons and solutions for the gun crisis that Toronto is now facing (in fact, I was quite vocal over the summer in articulating my solutions) but I propose at this time that perhaps instead of trying to solve the problem of the physical firearms, perhaps we should address this culture of fear that has pervaded our city.

On Saturday, I attended the funeral of Aleem Rehmtulla and Fahim Talakshi — childhood friends of mine that were shot to death early last week — and I realized, amongst the over-2000 people that attended the ceremony, that fear was not only crippling us, but it was contributing to the sad state of our city’s crime scene. Sure, the undercover cops and security guards may have been a necessary precaution, but it also sent a message: you’ve made your point and succeeded in making us feel afraid. Perhaps instead of battling the source of the gun trade, we should instead invest in propagating a culture of love, cliché as it may seem.

After all, the terrorists thrive on terror: if people are disturbed, if daily routines are altered, if people react to violence in fear, the perpetrators of this violence will see it as a valid way of asserting control or reacting to uncomfortable situations. David Cronenberg, in his latest film A History of Violence, showed us just how violence breeds violence because of the insecurity it brings to a community. But instead of cowering in fear, instead of hiding away, if we instead met violent crime not with terror and horror, but instead with love and compassion — if we showed a willingness to help both the victims and the criminals understand their actions rather than excluding them because we fear the risk of the repercussions — maybe these terrorists will realize that using violence isn’t actually delivering the message they had hoped. If they saw that their violence, instead of being destabilizing, was instead making the community grow closer together, they would perhaps think twice about repeating their actions.

Sure, it may be an idealized concept, and in practice it isn’t that easy, but a culture of fear will continue to breed more violence to perpetuate this fear. Breaking the cycle through a change in our reactions to such horrible acts may be difficult, but it may just be the only hope this city has now.

Earlier last month, the United Nations released the 2005 Human Development Reports, an annual report that usually deals with the status of poverty, inequality, and development in the “Third World.” However, this year’s report, in an effort to analyze on how inequality around the world is slowing down the process of the eradication of poverty, the reports decided to add a focus on a country they normally mention in passing: the United States of America.

Focusing on the inequalities on the availability of health care in the USA, the report tears apart the American pro-military policy and the lack of the proper distribution of health resources. I strongly suggest you read the report, as it details how America’s infant mortality rate is the same as Malaysia’s and other very interesting yet sobering facts.

It’s true that the public outrage after Hurricane Katrina disaster response has been influential in exposing these inequalities with the USA, and this report is further proof that instead of trying to fix the world through military occupation, maybe Americans - and perhaps all of us - should try and fix our own problems first.