西班牙人对巴斯克分离主义份子的暴行麻木不仁，以致于2004年伊斯兰极端份子在马德里杀害191人的暴行并未引起多大反应；而次年当自杀式炸弹袭击在伦敦地铁夺去52条生命的时候，英国人也因为经历过20世纪70年代爱尔兰恐怖主义的暴行而显得相对冷静。
The Spanish had grown so inured to acts of violence from Basque separatists that the murder of 191 people in Madrid by Islamist extremists in 2004 was met with remarkable sang-froid. When 52 people were killed in a suicide bombing on the London Underground the following year, the British, too, reacted with relative calm, having lived through years of Irish terrorist violence in the 1970’s.