The horror of terrorist attacks like the Manchester bombing Monday evening are obvious to anyone with a conscience, but we should also not overlook the small acts of heroism and compassion that arise from our darkest hours.
The latest example of the horrors of which people are capable was the bombing of the Manchester Arena in the United Kingdom, where a 22-year-old university student killed 22 people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounded 59 others, with the use of a suicide bomb packed with nails, nuts and bolts to maximize the damage.
The terrorist detonated the bomb in a foyer area at the conclusion of a concert by actress and pop singer Ariana Grande, who is particularly popular among teenagers, as people were filing out of the venue. He was believed to have come through unsecured outer doors with parents waiting to pick up their children.
The attacker, who was born in Manchester, was described as an Islamic extremist who had reportedly become radicalized fairly recently and been “known” to authorities. The Islamic State has claimed credit for the attack. At present, it is unknown if the bomber was a “lone wolf” attacker or part of a terrorist cell, though police have raided the home of a 23-year-old man and arrested him in connection with the attack. Ironically, the terrorist’s parents had fled the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Lybia and come to the U.K. as refugees.
The tragedy is the worst attack in Britain since the subway and bus attacks by four suicide bombers killed 52 people on July 7, 2005. It also brings to mind the teams of terrorists who killed 130 people across Paris in November 2015, including 89 at the Bataclan theater during a concert.
“We struggle to comprehend the warped and twisted mind that sees a room packed with young children not as a scene to cherish, but as an opportunity for carnage,” Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement. “But we can continue to resolve to thwart such attacks in future. To take on and defeat the ideology that often fuels this violence.”
But we should also tell the stories of those who showed our better nature in the wake of the disaster, like the woman who led about 50 unaccompanied teenagers to a nearby hotel and helped alert their families that they were safe until they could be picked up; or the efforts of a T-shirt seller and two homeless men at the venue to offer first aid and comfort to the wounded and dying.
We should celebrate the local businesses like Costco, Tesco and Iceland Foods who provided food and drinks to police responding to, and investigating, the scene, and the countless souls who used social media to offer cups of tea, a place to charge cellphones or housing for those stranded after the city center went on lockdown. That includes the numerous Muslim taxi drivers that offered free rides home to those in the area and the Muslim doctors who worked through the night to treat the injured. In just two days, nearly £700,000 ($900,000) has already been raised by nearly 28,000 contributors through a crowdfunding effort set up by the Manchester Evening News on the site JustGiving.com.
There will be plenty of time to continue discussions about how to prevent the most deranged and desperate among us from resorting to violence, whether due to Islamic extremism or other motivations, but amidst the grief and the heartache of another tragedy, it also does us some good to remind ourselves of the kindness, tolerance and freedom which most of our society values and strives to embody.
