It’s half past eight at night on a crowded city sidewalk. Familiar noises flood the air—the chatter of pedestrians, the steady rumble of cars, maybe faint music wafting from a restaurant terrace. Then—BOOM!

A sudden, blinding flash. Metallic shrapnel streaks through the air; windows shatter; car alarms wail. People scream and run. A few minutes later, crescendoing police-car and fire-truck sirens split open the night. The swelling chaos stands in sharp contrast to the unassuming source of the blast—lying under twisted metal, easily overlooked, the smoldering remains of a homemade bomb.

This was Chelsea, Manhattan, on September 17th. The bomb, fashioned from a pressure cooker, exploded on West 23rd Street, injuring thirty-one people, one severely.

A few hours after the blast, a nearby resident called the police about a suspicious package near her home. This turned out to be a second pressure-cooker bomb, which the authorities drove away and neutralized with a controlled explosion.

Earlier that day, New Jersey had had its own brush with bombs, at a 5k race event in Seaside Park, Ocean County. At around 9:30 a.m., just before the race was due to start, a pipe bomb exploded in a trash can. The run was canceled, the boardwalk evacuated, and a lockdown instituted. Investigators later found three other bombs, all of which were timed to go off during the race.

The next evening, in Elizabeth, a homeless man and his friend were wandering in search of a backpack. Fortuitously, they spotted a brand-new one on a trash can near the train station. But a look inside revealed wires attached to a pipe; the men, shocked, called 911. One of the bombs went off as the FBI’s robots worked to disable it, destroying one robot and damaging another. Following this accidental blast, the train station was evacuated and service suspended.

The alleged perpetrator of this string of bombings is 28-year-old Ahmad Rahimi, who was arrested on September 19th after a shootout with police. Born in Afghanistan, Rahimi came to the US in 1995, and became a citizen in 2011. He went to high school and college (majoring in criminal justice, before dropping out) in Edison, New Jersey, and lived in New York above his family’s fried-chicken restaurant. Friends described him as laid-back and generous. However, he had changed in recent years, becoming more stern and overtly religious. He also had a legal history—for example, during a family dispute in 2014, he stabbed his brother in the leg with a knife. He had traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan multiple times, and his journals show that he took inspiration from Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda members. He had also watched terrorist propaganda videos and posted jihadist writings online.

Rahimi’s case demonstrates that in the modern, hyper-connected world, acts of homegrown terror are becoming increasingly easy. Terrorist groups spread internet propaganda, and once someone is indoctrinated, they can easily learn how to make a bomb online. Rahimi himself followed the guidelines in an al-Qaeda web magazine, and bought his ingredients on eBay. Unfortunately, these “lone wolf” attackers are near-impossible to detect and stop.

As a result, over the past few years, terrorist attacks have been hitting the Western world with increasing frequency. Boston, Paris, Orlando, Munich. They have become almost expected. We mourn, we light candles, we move on.

In comparison to the above attacks, the recent ones in New York and New Jersey seem almost trivial—no fatalities, minor injuries. Nevertheless, these events, and others like them, inflict far more insidious psychological damage. They create a pervasive sentiment of fear and mistrust, especially toward Muslims. This is the terrorists’ goal.

As Jennifer Huang ’18 puts it, “[The attacks] drive a wedge between Muslims and non-Muslims, which makes it easier for extremist groups to recruit.”

These attacks also play into politics. Voters who don’t feel secure are more likely to support tough-talking politicians who propose things like blanket religious bans—and are more likely to ignore the broader ramifications of such policies.

Jack Lu ’19 states, “People who are scared make less rational decisions. And that’s ultimately bad for democracy.”

The truth is, no person or place can be a hundred percent safe. And this tech-savvy, globalized age has inevitably brought about a loss of some security. Yet these worldwide connections also enable positive change—understanding among different classes and cultures, as well as an increased say of the people in government.

Giving in to fear and mistrust means letting the terrorists win. Communities must hold on to their own values, and not allow the heinous acts of a few to close them off to everyone who is different. This is the only way to truly create a safer world.