The recent act of terrorism in London, which resulted in a number of people being injured by a bomb on a train, once again was a grim reminder that terrorists have managed to plant seeds of hatred in the minds of the vulnerable to keep their vicious ideology of attacking all who oppose their doctrine.

In the latest incident, fortunately the crudely assembled device failed to explode, and no lives were lost. However, the British Government decided to raise the level of alertness to critical, knowing another attempt was possible. This was the fifth incident in that country this year. Sadly, lives were lost in previous attacks.

While the United States and Nato forces claim they have inflicted heavy losses on the leadership capabilities of groups such as Isis, there is increasing concern that with modern technology, terrorists are still able to tap into the minds of the disgruntled in various parts of the world — and create enough lone wolves to use any means at their disposal to harm and destabilise civil order. That is a critical concern for all who cherish the right to a life of decency and freedom.

The situation raises another key question as to whether enough is being done by powerful nations to help the impoverished, who by the thousands in some regions are being crushed in a manner that amounts to a form of ethnic cleansing or genocide.

That these human tragedies occur in a world where there is an international space station circling the Earth is more than difficult to comprehend.

Although the leader of the world’s most powerful nation on earth, Donald Trump, has asserted on numerous occasions that terrorists will be defeated and eliminated, his credibility both in the US and around much of the world is far from strong, and many feel he falls short of understanding the complex global picture. Trump has suffered the indignation of being wrong in tweeting out daily so much that fact checking has proved inaccurate, and even the best of the professional journalists struggle to get at the truth. The point here is that when a leader is impulsive and unpredictable, confidence required for the highest office in the land crumbles.

However, something even more sinister could be occurring in a world of political confusion, where even the United Nations seems anything but united. When hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are forced to flee a region in a desperate attempt to escape brutal military powers and unimaginable suffering, conditions are ripe for potential hatred towards a world that at times seems to look the other way.

There are no easy solutions to regions where leaders rule by absolute fear, and in a world with nuclear weapons, trying to find diplomatic solutions is critical because unleashing such weapons could be far more devastating than anything being witnessed today.

Since terrorism strives on winning support from the disgruntled, and people with no food or shelter certainly fall into that category, powerful nations must step up the pace of trying to make the world a place where freedom and human dignity are not only for the highly successful economic arenas. It takes only one person who feels terrorism will even the playing field to act on a misguided perception that harming innocent people will improve their plight. Totally wrong.

Today’s world is so interconnected that, even here in Bermuda, we need to be aware of events taking place in other parts of the world. Bermudians are not only great travellers, but many are also working in distant lands in various professions. When people suffer in great numbers under highly questionable regimes, it keeps the potential high for seeds of global danger to grow.

Great leadership is needed during these challenging times from all leading nations if there is to be any hope of reversing what seems at the moment to be a trend towards the unthinkable.