“Not allowing terrorism to dictate the way we live our lives.”
“It’s important we don’t let a kind of suspicion divide us. The key to Manchester’s success over centuries has been it’s a vibrant city where people have learned to come and trust each other and live together and we mustn’t let the terrorists dictate the way that we live our lives.”[..]“We’ll particularly reach out to those who might be vilified asa result of last night.”
In what sense?
“Well I think inevitably there’s always, after an event like last night, there’s always a tendency to create blame by association and so we must make clear that is not a way that we behave or react.
The guilt for last night belongs to the perpetrators and to the perpetrators alone. It doesn’t go beyond - beyond them, and we - together we unite and we root out those malign influences in our society.”
So what’s your message to Manchester’s Muslim communities - Greater Manchester’s Muslim communities this morning?
My message to the Muslim community is - you are one with us, just as you were yesterday, you are one with us, part of us, a vital part of us this morning and you will go on being a vital part of us. You will be part of how we together respond to last night. You will be part of how we together repair the damage, rebuild what’s been destroyed and how we go forward as the fantastic, vibrant, diverse city and community that we are.
And how confident are you that when you say those words very powerfully this morning, that they are hears and appreciated by others, non-Muslims in Manchester, and indeed on other parts of the country?
When I first made a comment on social media the trolls were up and about and presenting their malign influence, but they are a very tiny minority and they are the ones we need to isolate in this, not major aspects of our community, but I think most of us are good enough at distinguishing between what is the truth in this and what is the message of hate, and you know, again and again, a little phrase - “love wins” and that’s an important phrase today in Manchester as it is in many places in many times.
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| Love wins |
Remember when the IRA were terrorising us? They would give coded warnings by phone, real or fake. It was as scary as it was intended to be. Sometimes there really were bombs, sometimes not. There was a warning before the big one in Manchester in 1994, but as it came during a spate of hoax warnings, some people had become so blasé that they chose to ignore it. (Chetham’s School of Music).
Islamic terrorists don’t want to divide us, don’t particularly care whether we change our way of life or carry on as usual. They don’t phone us up to warn us and they don’t try to scare us. They just want to kill us and I really don’t think love is all you need.
Update:
Update:
P.S. Did anyone blame the Jews for the IRA bombings?
