There was panic in downtown Port-of-Spain two Mondays ago as a bomb exploded in a dustbin outside Maraj Jewellers on Frederick Street . Immediately names like Hamas, Al Qaeda and Red Army – all terrorist organizations in different parts of the world – came to mind.

People started asking, “Has terrorism finally come to Trinidad ?” It is still too early to say whether it has or not, though it seems hardly likely. What, one wonders, could warrant any possible linkage between Trinidad and Tobago and contemporary global terrorism?

The US Intelligence document Country Reports on Terrorism defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” These groups attack US interests in various countries as a way of getting back at US for the effects of its foreign policy, especially in the Middle East.

Such terrorism has, however, become more globally widespread and the tactics of perpetrators more inhumane. The groups are invariably religiously motivated, like Hamas and Al Qaeda, and see their cause as enjoying divine sanction.

Innocent civilians, including young children and babies, are unwilling martyrs in a wider cause for justice. The 9/11 attacks, the Madrid and London bombings, not to mention the daily carnage in Baghdad are all examples of this mindless violence.

A key element in the strategy of terrorism is the randomness of its violence. Randomness means that no specific target is envisaged. Carnage and mayhem occur within the radius chosen for the act of terror, but this could be anywhere. If the act is not claimed by anyone, perpetrators remain invisible. Hence the difficulty in tracking them down or identifying them.

                     ABSENCE OF WORTH

It is hard to imagine, as we said above, this kind of violent political consciousness becoming part of our political scene. What occurred on Frederick Street seems to have been an act of terror without political or religious motivation. The intention, however, as with all such acts, was to cause grievous harm and to stir panic and terror in the populace.

That we should have a perverted mind of this kind in our midst means that crime has gone to a new level. The act is also an index of the depths to which the social health of our nation has sunk. What we see not only shows a total disregard for life but an absence of any sense that human life has worth or value.

We feel for all those injured, especially for Yvonne Mc Ivor, who lost her leg. We can only thank God that no one was fatally injured. It's an unexpected blessing that schools were closed, and numbers of children not exposed to injury or death.

We need to think hard and ask ourselves where this complete absence of any sense of human worth is coming from? A sense of the value of human life derives ultimately from a sense of God.

The less we know God, the less human we become, both individually and as a society. The materialism brought by globalization is stifling our spiritual sense and we are not fighting back.

In today's gospel Jesus talks about finding the “pearl of great price”. That pearl is, of course, God. When we find God, we find both ourselves and the ultimate value of everyone else. The trouble is, are we willing “to sell everything” in order to possess that pearl?