I have so far spared myself the IS beheadings videos. Last week, however, I found myself watching a young man being burned alive in a cage. I never imagined I would witness such a scene in my lifetime. I’ve always associated the spectacle (for it was intended as such) of people being burned alive with situations that kept a safe historical distance – Joan of Arc, auto-da-fé, necklacing, and so on.

Only the full horror of it really hit me this time. Death doesn’t come quickly to the victim. The Jordanian pilot appeared to be very much alive as his nose came melting off his face. It was hideous beyond belief.

The point has been made that to watch IS’s gruesome videos is to play their game, which has been described as one of ‘asymmetry of fear’. Simply put, the aim of any terrorist is to produce as much terror and outrage as can be had on a relatively lean capital investment. One man’s life and a few gallons of petrol are nothing to a well-armed and fabulously rich organisation like IS.

Which is why we were urged to refrain from watching the video and to look at photos of Lt Kasasbeh in happier circumstances instead. Apparently the idea was to put a dent in the profits of terrorism by being spectators to his smile, rather than to the death IS devised for him.

I disagree. Whether or not we choose to watch the videos, it is our response, individually as well as collectively, that is relevant. Our irrationality and hot-headed­ness would be IS’s strongest weapons. The trick is to keep level-headed at all times, in ways that are specific to our particular circumstances.

We might want to ask ourselves what sort of terror IS may be producing in Malta, and to address it. I think the main one is that IS militants could mingle with asylum seekers, cross over from Libya, and infiltrate us. I’ve come across this fear plenty of times in recent weeks.

Now I can understand why people might get carried away. There have been attacks in Libya and threats of a ‘war on Europe’, whatever that means. Nor does it help that the sky over Malta was resonant with the noise of fighter jets throughout most of past week. (The presence of the jets was not directly connected to IS, but that’s not the point).

The fear is that IS savagery could become part of our everyday lives, and it is not entirely baseless.

The last thing we need is some kind of tissue of irrational fear that would further push migrants towards the edges

Only it would be a mistake to take it out on asylum seekers, for several reasons. The main one is that asylum seekers often turn out to be fleeing, directly or through a ripple effect, the same conditions of violence and instability as those produced by terrorist groups. And, just like the victims of terrorism, they often end up dead.

That of the Jordanian pilot was one of two disturbing images I came across last week. The other was of the body of a young man, apparently a 26-year-old west African, drifting about the bottom of the sea off Mellieħa.

If militants wanted to infiltrate Malta, it is highly unlikely that they would do so disguised as asylum seekers. The migrant journey would expose them to a litany of risks. In any case they would stand out like sore thumbs on arrival. The last boatload of migrants who made it to Malta were so battered they could hardly walk, let alone march off the jetty to wage war on Europe.

There’s another thing. Terrorist groups have been known to recruit from populations of migrant origin that were settled but felt marginalised and left out, socially and economically. The last thing we need is some kind of tissue of irrational fear that would further push migrants towards the edges.

There are some encouraging signs.

In July 2013 I wrote a statement to express my disgust at the infamous pushbacks case. ‘My’ quickly became ‘our’ as 37 academics from the Faculty of Arts at University signed the statement.

The drift was that we were concerned about the feelings of bad blood and xenophobia stirred up by the government rhetoric of crisis and invasion.

Artists and designers were among the various groups that issued similar statements on that occasion.

Thankfully, there appears to be little resemblance between the present Prime Minister and that of the pushbacks bully-boy talk 18 months ago.

Joseph Muscat’s comments on Times Talk last Tuesday were thoughtful and responsible. He poured cold water on the idea that terrorists were likely to sneak in on boats, disguised as asylum seekers.

Addressing an audience at a think tank in Germany, Muscat said that blaming joblessness on migrants was ‘factually untrue and morally repulsive’.

He really seems to have had a change of heart on migration. Let’s call it a U-turn for the right reasons and in the right direction.

A very welcome one too, because racism and xenophobia are often the direct result of misinformed and populist political rhetoric. I still have an e-mail sent to me by a colleague who had refused to sign our statement of July 2013.

“I agree with and support my Prime Minister” (on pushbacks), it goes. On this matter at least, I can now say the same.

There are two ways in which the average Maltese person can resist and fight IS. The first is prevent their initial investment of savagery from mushrooming into a rich profit of irrational fear.

The second is to know who is and who is not the enemy.

mafalzon@hotmail.com

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