IN JUST under 24 hours, we have learned nothing about the Boston bomber or bombers. Yet our ignorance has not stopped the careful positioning among certain groups who seem to be itching to reveal ready-made opinions as soon as a suspect or "person of interest" is named. Anti-government extremist? You can almost feel some on the partisan left desperately hoping it is so. Muslim fanatic? Ditto on the right. You can already hear the faint, moronic ripples of annoyance that Barack Obama did not say the word "terrorism" yesterday. Yesterday was an obscure state holiday called Patriots' Day in Massachusetts. It was also the deadline for filing tax returns. And later in the week come the anniversaries of the Oklahoma City bombing and the raiding of the compound in Waco, Texas, a holy day in the anti-government nutjob calendar. This has been carefully trailed as potential evidence that the bomber might be an anti-government nutjob. But I feel confident that anyone with Google and some time could just as easily scare up an important date in Islamic history that falls this week. (There are even two calendars, and a millennium and a half of feuds and wars, to work with.)

And it is exactly that issue of calendars that keeps violent feuds going. One side remembers the other's wrongs as clearly as if they happened yesterday, and even takes a certain pleasure in commemorating them. (Needless to say, we don't commemorate our own side's crimes so religiously.) A constantly replenished well of grievance nourishes militants, keeping them fresh and ready to over-react to an offence or even a slight from the other side. And so conflicts go on.

What a mature, serious and strong society should learn to do is not to overreact, not to trample civil liberties, not to make the wrong arrests through haste. This bombing was vile, but should not occasion a war. The way to stop the cycle of revenge is for one side to have the strength and calm to do right and see justice done, but no more. Justice done properly can be frustratingly slow and boring, as anyone who has actually watched a criminal trial (not a televised drama) can tell you. But justice is done, in the unspectacular fashion that keeps the bad guys from marking up yet another easy grievance. There are, in the end, only so many days in the calendar.

(Photo credit: AFP)