by Joanne Lane

17 April 2013. Brisbane, Australia.

“This is an iconic race. This is a marathon’s Mecca, runners from all over the world make a pilgrimage to this run because it is the oldest running marathon in the world. There are 27,000 people from every corner of the world. Every religion, every colour, every creed are here.”

Australian marathon great Robert De Castella was in Boston this month to see one of his indigenous runners compete on the world stage. And perhaps unwittingly his response above gave some sort of clue as to why the marathon was targeted by bombs that killed three people and injured dozens others.

The marathon is one of the world’s oldest sporting challenges; a test of endurance, determination and tenacity. It is an event in which every participant is a hero. They’ve put in months of preparation, toiled for miles and the elation they experience at finishing after 42 kilometres is well deserved. As a keen runner, I know that feeling very well.

To have an event that should be a celebration of the human spirit targeted in such a way by terror is indeed as cowardly as newspapers and politicians have described across the world.

153 Australians were registered in the Boston marathon and while all are safe and accounted for, their tales are horrific. De Castella, the 1986 winner of theBostonmarathon, described the chaos and pandemonium after the blasts, particularly in finding his indigenous runner Emma Cameron who was evacuated from the course just one kilometre from the finishing line.

Sadly, in Australia we are somewhat used to running tragedies. In 2011 some runners suffered horrific burns when wildfires swept through the remote Kimberley region in Western Australia where they were competing in a 100km endurance race. And just weeks ago on March 24 my father was in the half marathon at the Twilight Running Festival in Brisbane when a storm erupted. High winds and rain lashed at runners making it almost impossible to continue. The event was cancelled but sadly one runner was killed by a falling tree branch.

Even though both events were a result of adverse weather, and not terrorism, there was a similar disbelief, like in Boston, that a sporting event could become the scene of such awful tragedy.

While remembering the Boston victims, attention has now turned in Australia to upcoming similar events that could pose security risks – the Gold Coast marathon in July that is a qualifying event for Boston and has 30,000 participants, the G20 world leaders’ summit in Brisbane next year that will be attended by dignitaries such as Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, and the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast that will attract large numbers of athletes and spectators.

Sporting and international events aren’t the only concern, ANZAC Day parades and services to honour Australian servicemen and women are fast approaching on April 25 and are well attended across the country.

With these events in mind, political leaders across the country are already doing their bit to allay fears. Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the government would not be changing the terrorism alert level in Australia, while Queensland Premier Campbell Newman acknowledged the Boston bombings had brought to light security concerns for the G20 and they were planning for every possibility.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr told the 7.30 Report how counter intelligence had already unearthed evidence that had prevented terrorism downunder.

“’Given the anxiety we all felt in the immediate wake of September 11 it is somewhat reassuring that this is the worst international terrorism can do if indeed this turns out to be such an attack,” he said.

“If you look at the experience of terrorism since September 11 . . . what is striking is how little progress in over a decade that terrorists have made.”

Little progress or not, most Australians would probably be more concerned that events in Boston could happen at all. Talking to friends and family in the days since, the most common sentiment is an increasing fear that this could happen anywhere, to anyone, at anytime.

It’s a sentiment that is obviously real in the USA. LZ Granderson wrote for CNN with the same notion: “If September 11, 2001, was the day everything changed, then April 15, 2013, serves as another reminder of that change, of our frailties and of a new reality in which “it can’t happen here” has been replaced by “it can happen anywhere.””

But while our geographic distance to most world affairs has afforded Australia a protective cocoon to some degree, a number of incidents and shifts have broken this veneer. While the primary terrorism threat to Australia is from global jihadists — the Bali bombings in the early 2000s counted amongst these – a secondary threat comes from people born or raised in Australia who have been influenced by their message. Of concern presently are young Australian Lebanese fighting, and even dying, in the war in Syria who government leaders fear could become radicalized.

The government pulls no punches about these concerns. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) publication “Transnational Terrorism” states plainly; “Australia is a terrorist target, both as a Western nation and in its own right. Intelligence confirms we were a target before the 11 September 2001 attacks, and we are still a target. Our interests both at home and abroad are in the terrorists’ sights.”

Small comfort perhaps, although it is encouraging to see the government face this threat head on. It was encouraging also to see the community of Boston, and its visitors, rally to help the injured, to give blood and to support one another. Despite the fear, the pandemonium, and chaos, those sentiments prevailed; effectively destroying some of the main tools of terrorism.

It was to these sentiments that Robert De Castella urged.

“This (Boston Marathon) is an event that brings the world together. So this is the last thing we should stop doing. We need more of these sorts of things not less…

“I’m of the view that the last thing we should do is kowtow to this sort of cowardice type action. We should continue to do what we always have done.”

In Australia that means continuing our tradition of public parades, barbecues, sporting and other events, and celebrating our religious tolerance and equality of opportunity for all races and gender.

The liberal democratic culture we live in has given us freedoms that we enjoy without impediment. It’s why boat loads of refugees seek our shores. It’s why immigrants come to be educated in our universities and people seek jobs in our economy.

The threat of terrorism, from within and without, is perhaps becoming an omnipresent force around the world, and while it might threaten us, we can respond in a way that doesn’t compromise our basic values or who we are as a society.

U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke of the nameless fear of his age, the Great Depression of the 1930s, in similar terms. While his inspirational message will obviously resound most deeply with Americans, it is one for all ages and societies about how we look into a future with terrorism.

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Joanne Lane is a freelance photojournalist based in Brisbane, Australia.