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Matthew d'Ancona: Terrorists will never destroy the tough Mancunian spirit

We love Manchester: 'The best possible response is to live well, together — as did New Yorkers after 9/11, and Londoners after the 2005 attacks': Getty Images
We love Manchester: 'The best possible response is to live well, together — as did New Yorkers after 9/11, and Londoners after the 2005 attacks': Getty Images

Confronted with the violent death and mutilation of the young, one struggles to muster more than grief. The horrors of the Manchester atrocity prompt a sort of aphasia: a muted quest for words that might do justice to the suffering of the slain, the injured and the bereaved.

So, as we wait for the full facts, let us begin by declaring what this attack is not. The murder of at least 22 concert-goers and the injury of many more at the Manchester Arena is the deadliest act of terrorist violence since the 7/7 explosions in London 12 years ago. But it is not part of a war between the West and Islam, between one civilisation and another.

The opposing forces in this conflict are sanity and extremism, pluralism and fundamentalism. The teenagers who went to see Ariana Grande last night represent the world as it is, and should be: multi-ethnic, diverse, united in shared enthusiasm.

Whoever was responsible for the heinous crime that hurt so many of them represents the precise opposite: the blinkered determination to enforce uniformity, to silence exuberance, to supplant joy with fear. In recent decades we have seen this determination manifest itself in so many forms, in so many places, at so much cost. The best possible response is to live well, together — as did New Yorkers after 9/11, and Londoners after the 2005 attacks.

Nor does this tragedy have anything to do with immigration or asylum policy — though some will claim otherwise, as they always do. The overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks in democratic societies are committed by their own citizens, schooled in murderous ideology online or by extremist preaching.

The enemy in this conflict is emphatically not the newcomer, or the neighbour with ancestry in a different country. It is a matrix of warped ideas that infest the minds of the impressionable, the disconnected and the desperate.

It is entirely appropriate, too, that election campaigning has been suspended, as was the referendum debate after the murder of Jo Cox last June. Again, there will be those who dare to whisper that, terrible it is, this traumatic interruption is somehow good for Theresa May, who was Home Secretary for six years and is more comfortable dealing with security threats than with U-turns on social care. Others will say, no less spuriously, that this act of terror will draw yet more attention to Jeremy Corbyn’s past links to the IRA.

But such arguments, however they are couched, should be dismissed as opportunistic bilge. Electoral campaigning is a ruthless business, not least when the prize is the government of the nation. But no mainstream politician of my acquaintance would wish to clamber to glory atop the dead bodies of teenagers, or score cheap points in the aftermath of such a horror. Those who do so — even by insinuation — should be treated with the contempt they deserve.

Of suicide, Nabokov wrote that “a man who has decided upon self-destruction is far removed from mundane affairs…since together with the man, the whole world is destroyed”. That may be true in the eyes of the bomber who, in killing himself, seeks to obliterate as many others as he can. In his act of self-slaughter, he tries to slaughter everyone else in the insane belief that death and purification are inextricably linked.

But such endeavours, however cruel their consequences, are doomed to failure. One has only to consider the spirit of Manchester to realise that this is so. Once the heartland of the industrial revolution, the city experienced an extraordinary cultural and commercial renaissance in the Eighties and Nineties, spawning the most exciting pop music in the world, the best comedy, a technology boom, and a healthy banking sector. It is the home of an outstanding Russell Group university, fantastic museums and galleries, and two mighty football teams, one of which — Manchester United — has reached the Europa League final against Ajax in Stockholm tomorrow night.

Such an irrepressible metropolis does not surrender to madness or to violence. The late Tony Wilson, the musical entrepreneur once aptly described as the “metaphysical mayor” of the city, put it well: “This is Manchester, we do things differently here.” He was right, and right to maintain that the city’s revival in the last quarter of the 20th century reflected an innate resilience, resourcefulness and creativity in its people. Bands like Joy Division, The Smiths, and Oasis, and the alternative comedy wave that rose in parallel to them, were a symptom as well as a cause of a collective civic undertaking that put Manchester back on the global map — where it remains.

The train journey from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly takes a little more than two hours. But the two cities are much closer together today, in heart and soul. Both have suffered the savagery of terrorism, and its grievous legacy. The lowering of the flag in Downing Street to half mast this morning was a message of solidarity from Londoners, as well as from the whole nation.

At 7:25am, Manchester City Council tweeted this message: “Despite the appalling events at the Mcr Arena last night, the city is open for business. Those people trying to sow fear will not succeed.” We would expect no less from the city of Emmeline Pankhurst, the birthplace of Lloyd George, the adopted home of Richard Cobden and Sir Alex Ferguson, the inspiration of countless artists from L S Lowry to Danny Boyle.

“I am the resurrection and I am the life”: is not just a biblical text but a cherished lyric of Manchester’s most beloved band, the Stone Roses. Today, the world mourns for the city. But be in no doubt: it will rise again.