THE chilling words daubed across a wall in South Shields this week should remind us all, if we didn't already know it, that this ugly war is right on our doorstep: "Avenge USA, Kill a Muslim now".

Just two weeks ago, I wrote about the sort of hatred and bigotry that thrives in West Belfast and which most people in England cannot understand. And now here it is on our streets in the North-East.

Northern Ireland may be on a different scale to the horrors the whole of the West faces today, but if we have learnt anything from it, it should be that the war against terrorism is not an easy one. There are no quick solutions.

I have heard people in the North-East say we should wipe out whole sections of Afghanistan and surrounding countries, so there is no risk of a repeat of last Tuesday's devastation. It may be a minority view, but it is, depressingly, echoed the world over. I have watched on television as people repeated similar bitter sentiments on the streets of New York, London and Israel.

I am haunted by the same words I have heard so many times before directed at the people of Northern Ireland. After atrocities like the Birmingham pub bombing someone, somewhere was sure to declare: "Just blast the lot of them..."

It is a view borne out of anger and ignorance and the sort of blind hatred bred by terrorism. This hatred, once unleashed, goes rushing through communities like the dust from ruined buildings that still blows through the streets of Manhattan.

Bush knows his public wants fighting talk and a swift and conclusive response to last week's attacks. But, as in Northern Ireland, the unseen enemy which lives and hides among ordinary people, most of whom are opposed to violence, is difficult to target. The Taliban does not have the support of the majority of Afghans. The main struggle for the common people there is the daily battle to put bread on their tables. Life expectancy is about 46 and 150 out of every 1,000 children die at birth.

In Northern Ireland, the bloody conflict has endured over more than three decades and it is worth reminding ourselves how random retaliation has always resulted in far worse atrocities. After mass internment was introduced or when innocent civilians were killed by the British army in Bloody Sunday, terrorists' ranks swelled.

We should be prepared for a long and difficult war.

OF all the words spoken and written and all the emotions raised over the horrors in America last week, the one that, for me, will linger and endure is: love. Those passengers in the hi-jacked aeroplanes and office workers struggling to breathe in the smoke-filled towers knew that the words they spoke to their husbands, wives, parents, brothers or sisters would probably be their last. "I just want you to know, I love you." "Tell the kids I love them." "No matter what happens, I'll always love you." The word was repeated over and over, and for the most part by sophisticated, hard-bitten, famously blunt New Yorkers. Those who have been with a loved one in their dying moments will appreciate that, at the end, it is all that matters. That is when you realise just how meaningful and powerful the word is, because there is nothing else worth saying.

Published: Friday, September 21, 2001