Today, there are no Manchester United or Manchester City fans, only Mancunians. Wherever you are reading this article from, make no mistake about the incontrovertible fact that Manchester is a place that has changed your life, even if you have never been there. Long before the cowardly terrorist attack yesterday, May 22, 2017, that killed 22 people, including children, and injured dozens more, at an arena hosting an Ariana Grande concert, Manchester has led the way in cultural, athletic, and scientific innovation for years.
While there truly are no words for a terrorist having decided to criminalize a night out as an innocent child, the reason that I can write my thoughts for you to read right now is because of the leaps and bounds made in computer technology in Manchester. Back in 1948, World War II codebreaker and mathematical genius, Alan Turing, became the Deputy Director of the Computing Laboratory at the University of Manchester. It was during his time in Manchester that Turing was responsible in 1951 for coming up with the operating manual behind the Ferranti Mark I computer, also known as “Baby.” Without Turing’s Manchester “Baby,” the first ever commercial computer, I would not be typing this article on my laptop, and you would not be reading it on your smartphone.
As some parents in Manchester right now are grieving for the loss of their children and others hold out hope that they will be reunited with them after being separated in the chaos following the terrorist attack, many people were only able to attend that Ariana Grande concert because they took a train, yet another Manchester original. The northwestern English city is home to Liverpool Road, the 1830 train station that is a testament to the first ever intercity railway line in the world. Even back in the 19th century, Manchester was trying to innovate in how to connect people, culture, and ideas. Just as now, Ariana Grande wanted to go on a world tour and connect with her fans. While it may not be as famed as London, make no mistake, Manchester embodies all the values of western liberal democratic society at its best.
It is particularly saddening that this terrorist attack targeted a musical event, given Manchester’s rich history as the hometown of many innovative musicians. Manchester is home to Oasis, The Stone Roses, and The Chemical Brothers, just to name a few of the city’s favorite musical sons.
In response to the unspeakable evil that was perpetrated in Manchester last night, President Donald Trump said in a press conference that the victims of the suicide bomber were “murdered by evil losers in life. I won’t call them monsters, because they would like that term.”
President Trump is absolutely right that the terrorists (police are actively looking for any living accomplices to the dead suicide bomber) are “evil losers,” who would enjoy being labeled as monsters. It is actually more frightening to recognize them as human beings who decided to take up the cause of a depraved and murderous ideology.
While expressing his solidarity with the people of Manchester, President Trump also touched on another important point, which is that “we’ll have more of them.” The attack in Manchester is just the latest in the human toll behind a battle of ideas. The values of Western liberal democratic societies are fundamentally at odds with the death cult of terrorists. There are currently many people in law enforcement and the intelligence community that are on the front lines of this war with no set war zone, but anyone living their everyday life is seen as a target and an enemy by terrorists behind such attacks. People in Manchester and the rest of the world for that matter must have the courage to keep on living their lives with the quiet courage that will surely drive these “evil losers” mad as they one day are forced to realize that they cannot and will not win this war.
Today, we are all Mancunians. Were it not for the United Kingdom, there would be no United States of America. President Trump was right to condemn this act of terror, and the U.S. must continue to do all it can to support our British cousins through the five eyes intelligence-sharing agreement and ensure that such an attack does not happen again. In the global war on terror, Trump, in private phone calls and closed-door meetings with British government officials, must make the same sort of commitment as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. During a meeting between FDR’s envoy Harry Hopkins and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the eve of the U.S. committing itself to the European theater in World War II, Hopkins quoted the Book of Ruth by saying, “’Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Even to the end.’”
