Sabah Says…Manchester is ONE

Being here in Mauritius while all hell was breaking loose in my home city is a feeling that I really can’t describe. On Monday 22nd May, just before going to sleep, I saw across social media that an incident had occurred at Manchester Arena in the UK – some kind of explosion or something. Thinking nothing of it, I went to sleep, only to awaken a few hours later to discover that a bomb in the name of terrorism had gone off, mercilessly snatching away 22 lives and injuring many others in the process. 

What? A bomb? In my home city? I was stunned to silence; the numbness slowly crawled its way across my body and then suddenly, the tears began to flow. And to be honest, ever since it happened, I keep finding myself silently crying and no matter what I do, I just can’t seem to get it off my mind. 

I think this has hit me so hard because Manchester is home. It’s the place where I was born, where I grew up. Its streets are my friends and its people: my family. I have spent so many of my days, good and bad, in the city centre where the bomb struck. I have sung out my heart until my voice was hoarse on many occasions within Manchester Arena itself. And I knew people that were at the Ariana Grande concert that fateful evening; they thankfully made it out unscathed, but still, it is all just so real, so raw – it’s all just so close to home.

Now, for me, thinking about the state of the world and the atrocities that occur every single day, is a regular occurrence. It seems that there is just so much bad in the world that we are helpless to do anything about them. A terrorist attack in my home city has just highlighted that even further and forced me to face the enormity of the situation that we are struggling against today. It has forced me even more to think of the worried little faces in Palestine and the fear-filled families in Syria; the people in Afghanistan who have known war for far too long and all of our other brothers and sisters around the world who have to deal with situations like this on a daily basis. 

It is heartbreaking that so many innocent lives are being destroyed in order to keep the elite right at the top, where they want to be.  But without getting too deep into politics and why we live in a such a corrupt and unjust world, it is fair to say that there is absolutely no reason that excuses the senseless, mindless acts of murder that take place globally every day. The suicide bomber that struck at Manchester Arena last week chose a concert full of children – little people whose lives have barely even begun – to detonate his weapon. To me, that is the absolute lowest of the low and makes me sick to the very core of my soul.

However, as heartbreaking as the state of the world is, it is times like these in which light will arise from darkness, and I can truly say - even being thousands of miles away – I have never been as proud of my city, as I am today. 

The attack brought together the people of Manchester in a way that I have never witnessed before. As transport came to a halt following the attack in the city centre, Mancunians took to Twitter to offer their homes, beds and sofas to those who needed a safe place to stay. The hashtag #roomforManchester quickly began trending online for this message to reach as many people in need as possible. Taxi drivers across the city turned off their meters and began offering free lifts home to everyone that needed one, no questions asked. Off-duty doctors, nurses and surgeons, quickly rushed to hospitals where they were needed to tend to the injured and worked for hours on end without a break. Stories emerged of two homeless men who selflessly rushed into the arena upon hearing the blast, to help anyone that was in need – one of whom carried a girl who lost both legs in the blast to safety and held another woman as she passed away in his arms. The stories are endless and just so inspiring, displaying perfectly the way in which a community can and should come together in times of need.

In the days following the attack, sadly hates crimes against Muslims also doubled in Manchester, carried out by people who clearly believe everything they see in the media without doing their own research, allowing the concept of ‘divide and conquer’ to truly manifest. But, once again I was shown how good will always outweigh the bad through a YouTube video made by a Mancunian lad called Baktash Noori, who stood blindfolded on the streets of Manchester with a sign displaying the words, “I’m Muslim and I trust you. Do you trust me enough for a hug?”. He filmed the response and the results are truly overwhelming. Personally, once again I could not stop the tears as I watched, but only because the video brought me so much joy, as people of all colours, backgrounds, races and religions queued up to give the boy a hug. It was truly beautiful.

So today, what I want to say is that despite living in such difficult times, all hope is not lost. There are still lots of good people in the world. There are still legions of us that want peace. There are many of us that see each other as equals. Manchester has shown that it is one in these most troublesome of times and today, I am so proud to be a Mancunian. 

I will leave you with the words of Martin Luther King Jr. …. 

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Light & Love, Sabah 

Photo credit: Manchester Evening News