I enjoyed reading your comments on South Africa. It's still a volatile situation amongst Africans so inclined to the persecution of their own. I am not easily assured by your words. Has it, as you have written, become a multi-racial state where Whites have been enshrined as senior partners in a mutually beneficial governmental structure? Political progress has been achieved, I agree, but there are those who hate the current structure and are little mollified by the "Goodwill" speeches of thwe present Government. Political and ethnic awareness is being spread. It is a gargantuan struggle to achieve an ideal.

The Government attempts to dampen the violent overtures of more militant party members. Old rivalries resurface. The ANC has problems and the pent passions of the people could easily explode into racial rioting, leaving many casualties. I have become acutely aware of the growing uncertainties of the ordinary man who languishes in anticlimactic aimlessness. Complaints of intimidation, racial discrimination and social inequalities further inflame the situation. Unease is being demonstrated in an upsurge of sabotage, violence and killings. Hoodlums terrorise passing motorists and all over the country incidents of arson, vandalism and assault occur. There are disturbing reports of lawlessness and licence. Old long suppressed prejudices are emerging and it would seem that serious tribal infighting has broken out. Blacks have been hideously maimed or burnt alive in their own homes. Such callous and wanton cruelty is hard to believe. It is apparent that some of the victims are members of political parties and rival groups. The savage murders infuriate the opposition and vigilante groups roam the townships. In some townships, the semblance of civilised order has begun to rapidly disintegrate. Agitators feed their ideology to an impressionable emergent people already embittered by the real and imagined crimes of the present Government and unrest could spread. A troublesome minority are a law unto themselves. They are hostile, resistant to change and irrevocably cemented in their old ways. They will deal a crippling catharsis to South Africa. The Government has to act to contain this violence.

Yes, at times, I feel as if I am out of step, feeling and thinking in one world and existing in another. How can I not become emotionally involved when I record what I see? If all I do is to convey the description of violence and disorder by looking upon the confusion without recording my own feelings and experience, how can they fully be judged? My words could never convey the whole experience of the picture. I find it almost impossible to translate the pictures into symbols which accurately represent them. Some pictures are so fleeting or ephemeral that I can hardly capture them in symbolic form. They are almost impossible to express in words. When I experience a picture, I am caught between its furies. I feel and observe, I rejoice and suffer. Largely, what I write is instinctive but I search for precise words. I can spend an hour on a sentence, a paragraph, even a page as I fumble with words. Writing by hand exacts more effort, its slower, giving time for second thoughts. At best, my words distort and betray the truths of the pictures because I have little understanding of what it is that I have seen. All too often it is a mad confusion of images.. Often my words only hint at what I have seen in my mind, they are rough and ready translations. I often become frustrated by the gap between what it is I've seen and my language in their recording.

I record all my thoughts with a rush of words but they do not capture what it is that I've been trying to say. It is why I work with written notes and drafts. I often find myself expressing my thoughts and ideas in a number of different ways before I am finally satisfied.

I wonder if I press more meaning into their recording than exists. It is hard to master their confusion and complexity and be able to present what it is I see lucidity. As I have written above, it is hard to disengage myself from my own feelings. It is a question of understanding and explaining their least explicable and ultimately inexplicable images. I am like a child fumbling with a complex tool that I do not understand. The images can be ambiguous and can take many forms and be on many levels. I am acutely aware of their uncertainties. I cannot handle or understand fully all which is portrayed. Barriers exist because of my own lack of knowledge and language.

I ask myself why so much death? Why does it have to be like this? Why does hatred compel not only Palestinian, but Jew to keep on killing? Is it because they have grown up hating each other? Is it because they don't need reasons and because hatred is bred into them? Is this why it is natural for them to grow up hating and killing? Blind hatred and irrational feelings is bred into fanatics and there is no doubt that the Islamic Jihad has built on its strengths, the hatred of many things and the zeal and fanaticism of its members, mixed with realism. Such hatred is fed remorselessly and constantly devours any semblance of good will and reason. Killing becomes a means to an end. They are not concerned about the morality of it. Desperation and zealousness breeds fanaticism, the most deadly of all movements. Their religion consumes them as does their devotion to the Koran, which is absolute. Fervour and beliefs create their own reality and all too often they only see the righteousness of their own point of view. The bombing in retrospect was inevitable. As inevitable as it is wasteful of human lives, resources and man's capacity to reason and emphasise with his neighbour. The respect for human life and the spirit of democracy is wiped out by anyone who uses terror tactics, they inflict their world on the innocent.

The Israelis are dealing with hate and age old frustrations which are exploding with avengence. Too many have become brutalised by familiarity with violence and killing. Broken families, vicious terror, wasted lives, early death - what does it achieve and where does it lead? Hamas and Islamic Jihad exhort the Palestinian people into rebellion. What are they, but political extremists who live on an adrenaline high, who plan and run armed terror, whose currency is violent death and bereavement. This will not end, it will never end if things go on as they are. There will be no winners or losers. Only death and more death.

They continue to plan acts of outrageous and cruel carnage which are and will be calculated to seize the headlines and dominate the media, to advocate and advance their cause and to keep it in the public consciousness. They believe the sheer scale of the carnage will so outrage and horrify the Israeli public that the Israeli government will be forced to negotiate a withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. They imagine that more terror will achieve some kind of result. (Their aim is to rock the Israeli government. They have enough supporters to continue the slaughter of Israelis it's a dangerous, potentially disastrous scheme - they do not look beyond the immediacy of the situation.)

The peace process is bleeding from the edges. Peace is only supportable if it is real and happens as a natural event and not because it is being enforced by the stronger Nation. The blame cuts both ways, both Palestinian and Israeli is guilty. The fanatics in Israel make others suffer for their outworn beliefs as do the fundamentalists in Palestine. The Israelis, tired as they are of conflict, cannot shrink from the difficulties that lay ahead, nor abandon the peace process that has commenced if they are to survive. It will not be easy for old enemies and the past will always be with them. Peace won't come soon enough to save many from the grief which will engulf both Jew and Arab alike. In spite of the pains to be endured, which will continue to destroy so much hope and promise for so many, life will still be lived.

No, I don't believe the Israelis are precipitating the crisis. What I was trying to point out was that there are people who use their influence to apply political pressure on the Israeli Government to take a course of action that is both ill-advised and could result in disaster. I don't disagree with your comments, the Israelis will continue to take extreme measures against those who threaten their territory. They believe only action can protect the citizens of Israel. The Israelis fight terrorism on a daily basis. They kill and have been killed. Activity flares, dies and flares again. These are not skirmishes to the Israelis, they are battles in an on-going war. The Israelis also know that they cannot, politically, afford to do nothing while Israelis are being killed and their borders violated with impunity. If Arafat is unable to control what is happening along his own borders then Israel will have no choice but to take action to control matters. The fact is Arafat cannot control the borders and prevent further raids from taking place and this should not be ignored.

I agree with your comment that there are those who want the Israelis to be uptight and they are trying to get them to react and shoot back. The question is, just how far are they going to take it? Yes, there will be more incidents and casualties and your conclusions are frightening enough. Intelligence estimates indicate that forces opposed to the peace process are attempting to further precipitate a crisis.

I guess you take the practical approach. What is important as you say is to prevent Arafat taking extreme measures for solving the problem. To succeed he needs time to establish his Council's authority, reorganise state and political apparatus and equally important to get the economy moving. There are those who oppose throwing money at the Palestinians. Some want the peace process to collapse altogether. Closing the border cripples his efforts. Instead of controlling the situation and providing a solution which allows for some flexibility Arafat finds himself reacting to events. Politically, Arafat cannot afford inaction.

Regarding your comments on Israel and Palestine, both the Palestinian and Israelis, in truth, are ill-equipped by their past for either love or peace. They have been fighting so long, so furiously that they don't know how to be peaceful. In such ceaseless bloodletting, Israelis are often targets of simple opportunity. It is always a constant threat, a constant possibility. The Israelis are permanently in a state of war. They will learn slowly and painfully and they are quite capable of killing each other in the process. They have become entangled in the past. and their lives are twisted together like a skein of a rope. They have no other choice open to them but to move forward. Everyone wants peace, the terrorists by victory, the clergy by power, the politicians by subtle compromises and people like me, by wisdom, love and compromise. Unfortunately, the last three points are rarely considered by some of those involved.

The undercurrents that exist throughout the world are quite sobering - al-Qa’ida seem to be raising its ugly head - or many heads - right across the spectrum. I have been trying for a very long time to understand what is happening. Now I see a part of the story. At first I thought those responsible for the Bali bombing were to a certain extent incompetent as they had so easily been tracked down through good detective work but I now realise it is far more complicated than that.

We attempt to stomp out the plague by destroying the source of infection. We hunt them and imprison them and occasionally we kill them but they still explode bombs in hotel lobbies and in night clubs killing innocent, men, women and children. But those responsible for such atrocities are not the real face of the terror we see but remain hidden under the layers created.

Al-Qa’ida is being reborn as an organisation that has no leaders, no structure, no purpose or plan other than to sustain the deadly spectre of terror. A solid structure is being built that is invisible, to develop the infrastructure of an organisation that would not exist, to plan operations that would appear to have no planning - operations that could be denied plausibly by the people who had ordered them. It is beginning to develop into an organisation that has no address, no footprint and eventually no name.

In the aftermath of each bombing or assassination there is only the blackness and anonymity of pure terror. Anonymity means cut-outs. Layers of people, witting and unwitting, interposed between the word and the deed. It means establishing dead drops in major cities and discreet communications. Building a network means expanding the frail infrastructure already in place. Underneath everyday life there is a ferment brewing of the long inert masses especially amongst the restless and energetic young people who have intense fanatical aspirations. All that hate, frustration, idealism and sheer raw energy which is being tapped into and manipulated.

Intelligence services in many countries have checked and cross checked their files, pulling the strands of information together. I believe a pattern has begun to emerge. It is difficult to hunt the nameless. Intelligence services would give anything to learn the names of the people involved, their whereabouts and headquarters. The recent atrocities prove that they have men and women scattered throughout the world gathering not only information on targets when required, but able to use extreme and damaging terror tactics if called upon. It implies a mastermind planning things on a massive scale, much wider than has been seen before. What we are seeing is only a single facet of this organisation at work. They work with others and have accomplished much more by exchanging vital information and resources. These groups have been given every possible means of assistance and co-operation which includes not only military assistance and provision of weapons, but electronic technology, training in the use of equipment and any other such means in the propagation of propaganda, dissidence and Islamic ideals throughout the world. We have not seen the end to this terror and more outrages are planned. It's one hell of a conspiracy and I can't even guess at its spread but it goes further than the Middle East, Europe and Asia.