I've just returned from two weeks relaxing leave on Europe's most southerly tip.
For many years now I have been coming here to the windswept Spanish town and kite surfers' paradise of Tarifa that sits across from Morocco. Separated by only a few miles of water in the straits where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean, this is where Europe and North Africa sit cheek-by-jowl.
As a gateway to Europe these straits have historically always been of strategic importance. Today they pose security problems of their own as a potential entry point for Islamic inspired terrorists and the flow of illegal drugs from North Africa.
Running east-to-west from Gibraltar, Algeciras and Tarifa on the European side and the Spanish exclave of Ceuta and the Moroccan city of Tangier on the North African shore, monitoring security here remains a greater than ever priority for the Spanish, British and Moroccan authorities. Recent events in Tunisia will only have focussed the minds more of those tasked with countering any terrorist threat.
Tourism in Morocco has seen larger than ever numbers of British and other overseas visitors in recent years with the number of UK nationals rising from 308,000 in 2010 to 460,000 last year. This included a 51,000 increase in 2012, the year after the Marrakesh bombing which killed 15 people and which the Moroccan authorities blamed on al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) even if such links were never full firmed up when sentences were passed on the men convicted of the bombing.
In a time when the world seems wracked by the barbarism of extremists and acts of terrorism it is perhaps worth pausing to consider how best we as individuals can play our own part rejecting the hatred from which so many of these acts derive.
This year sees the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. Barely two decades ago during that terrible period in July 1995 as the war in Bosnia raged, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically massacred and buried in mass graves.
Around the same time too thousands of women, children and elderly people were forcibly deported and a large number of women were raped. These dark days marked the greatest atrocity on European soil since the Second World War.
From July 5-12 hundreds of memorial events organised by the charity Remembering Srebrenica will take place across the United Kingdom to mark Srebrenica Memorial Week. As an organisation with which I have been proud to be associated, Remembering Srebrenica works across all sectors of society sending out the resounding message 'Never Again' and helping strengthen our ability to reject and tackle hatred, racism and intolerance.
Scotland will play its own part in this with a Scotland National Commemoration at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh on July 10 at which First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will make an address.
As recent events in Tunisia have once again tragically reminded us, eliminating the threat of terrorism from our daily lives is one of the greatest challenges of our time. But by standing united against those who preach intolerance, hatred and violence we have one of the most potent weapons at our disposal
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