By Dr. Salman Al-Azami
MANCHESTER
In the wake of the terrible attack on innocent civilians in my own home city that has shaken the world, it is the time that the government, the police, the media, and the Muslim community work together to face this evil curse head on.
Terrorism is not a new phenomenon and many people have probably come to terms with the inevitability of these types of attacks -- that they can happen at any time anywhere and we all are susceptible to such atrocities.
However, it is only when carnage like this takes place in one’s own backyard when the reality bites hard.
Like any other fellow Mancunians, I am shocked and horrified at the senseless killing of innocent civilians, many of them young people, but at the same time feel proud of the ‘Manchester Spirit’ that has brought people together, thus destroying the main objective of the terrorists who want to divide us.
It has been extremely heartening to see how people from all ethnicities, and professions have come together to support the victims and the emergency services who have done a splendid job in the worst-ever emergency situation in this city.
Despite the positivity emerging from a truly diverse city, we should not forget the effect this terrible incident has had on the Muslim community here.
On one hand we grieve with fellow citizens at the senseless killing of innocent people, but on the other we fear of the repercussions that this may have on the community in the days, weeks and months to come.
Although hate crimes against Muslims have been few and far between, barring some incidents including a petrol bomb attack on a mosque in Oldham, Muslims are once again at the receiving end for a crime that they have absolutely nothing to do with.
They are in the spotlight just because the killer was a Muslim, though his action was completely against his faith.
We also need to have some perspective here. U.S. President Donald Trump himself acknowledged in his recent speech in Saudi Arabia that 95 percent of terror victims in the world are Muslims.
If this is the case, then why should the victims be asked about the perpetrators’ actions?
We must not forget that just two-and-a-half years ago 132 Muslim schoolchildren were indiscriminately shot and killed by terrorists in Pakistan.
Innocent Muslim men, and children are being killed every day in Syria by terrorists.
While we mourn the death of innocent lives in Manchester, we must not forget that life of Westerners is in no way more or less valuable than life in any other part of the world.
The loss of a single innocent human being is a loss too many, as the Muslim book, the Qur’an, poignantly says.
Having said that, we in the Muslim community do need to do our fair share in countering the poisonous ideology a tiny minority of our young people seem to have got involved in, mostly through online grooming.
We need to first engage with anyone having sympathy with terrorism and try to change their minds through conveying the proper teachings of Islam.
If that doesn’t work, we need to inform the police to prevent that individual from harming the community.
It has been reported that the bomber used to pray at the Didsbury in Manchester, who, at a press conference on Tuesday, rightly condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms.
However, if the report that Salman Abedi, the bomber, once gave an angry look to the imam of the mosque for condemning ISIS [Daesh] is true, then there should have been efforts to change his mind or report him to the police.
If the whole Muslim community in this country is determined that they will not tolerate this perverted ideology to remain unchallenged, then these people will not succeed in harming our country.
Thankfully, many of us are already doing that, including the report to the police a few years ago about the Manchester bombers’ dangerous views.
I strongly feel that a more united effort will make it more effective.
But to me, the most important role needs to be played by the government to engage with the Muslim community at a much deeper level to assure them that they consider the community as a part of the solution, not the problem.
Since taking power in 2010, the Conservative-led coalition stopped engaging with the largest mainstream Muslim umbrella body the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) -- a policy that has continued to date.
The MCB claim that they have approached the government to help counter ISIS, but the government never responded.
Not only that, the Conservative government’s counter-extremism ‘Prevent’ agenda is hugely controversial and widely regarded as alienating the Muslim community.
Another important stakeholder in this discussion is the media which have a big responsibility in uniting the people to take on the terrorists rather than creating divisions and suspicions through publishing provocative articles that stereotype the whole Muslim community as the ‘other’.
British Muslims are an integral part of our society and it is the time that the British government and the mainstream media accept this fact.
On the other hand, every member of the Muslim community needs to play their part in safeguarding our young people from being brainwashed by perverse ideology that has nothing to do with Islam.
Instead of passing on the blame to others, let us all work together to make our country better.
Let the government, the media, the police and the Muslim community work unitedly to face this evil curse head on.
We may have differences, but we can definitely unite within our diversities. Let the ‘Spirit of Manchester’ be passed on to every city in Britain and transform a ‘City United’ into a truly ‘United Kingdom’.
[Dr. Salman Azami is Senior Lecturer in Language at Liverpool Hope University and the author of 'Religion in the media: A Linguistic Analysis' recently published in the U.K.]
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu Agency.
