Sabah Says… A Month of Atrocity and Tragedy

I’m not going to lie – this past month has not been the easiest. It seems as the days go on, the world is being thrown even deeper and deeper into turmoil and chaos. Watching the news everyday, my heart breaks as I sit here helplessly, watching the human race destroy the planet and destroy each other with no regard. It’s all just such a sorry state of affairs at the moment and I just don’t know when, if and how things will get better. 

If for some reason you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me take you through this past month and all the huge atrocities and tragedies that have occurred in the Western world in such a short space of time; the reason why many people in the UK and also probably around the world, are feeling hopeless, helpless and heartbroken, just like me.

It all began around a month ago when a terror attack hit my beloved home city of Manchester in the UK, in which a bomb was detonated at Manchester Arena after the Ariana Grande concert, mercilessly stealing away the lives of 22 innocent people (the youngest of whom was only eight years old) and injuring a further 120. The attack shook the world and especially the people of Manchester; particularly because the lone suicide bomber chose his final destination to be a concert arena filled with young people – and I don’t possibly think you can stoop any lower than this. Setting out on a mission to murder anyone – but especially to murder young children – disturbs me to the very core.

Just as everyone was trying to come to terms with the Manchester attack, around ten days later another attack struck the country’s capital – the second terrorist incident in London this year. This time, a hired van intentionally ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge after which three crazed individuals got out and began a stabbing spree in Borough Market, an area filled with restaurants and bars. Five innocents were killed and a further fifty more injured. 

With both attacks having been carried out by deluded individuals who believe that the barbarous acts they are carrying out are in the name of Islam and Allah (anyone who has any sense whatsoever knows that Islam out rightly condemns the killing of innocent people – as does any religion), it was obvious that the backlash would be felt by Muslim people just trying to go about their day-to-day lives as normally as possible, around the globe.

Two men were killed on a public train in Portland, Oregon on 26th May when they stepped in to defend two young girls who were the subject of anti-Muslim slurs from a hate-filled man, who, it was later found, was a well-known white supremacist from the area. 

Just in the last few days as I was writing this article, another two atrocities have occurred; one, the murder of a 17-year-old Muslim female in Virginia, United States, at the hands of a deranged man and two, the Finsbury Park Mosque terrorist attack in which a man with the intent to kill Muslims ploughed down worshippers leaving the mosque, killing one and injuring seven, three of which are in a critical condition. The bias of the mainstream Western media in both of these cases has been so ridiculous, with neither case being described for what it really was: hate and terrorism. And once again, here I am questioning the sad and desperate reality of the broken world in which we are living in today.

Finally, I must talk about the Grenfell Tower fire – one of Britain’s biggest ever tower block fires that has quite obviously killed hundreds of its residents, which the media again refuses to acknowledge, referring still to the dead as ‘missing’. 

The Grenfell Tower fire occurred on 14th June at a 24-storey block of public housing flats in North Kensington, West London, which was home to hundreds of working-class people, mainly those from ethnic minorities – a disaster which could have been avoided, had the authorities and the Government done their jobs properly. Grenfell Tower is situated in a mainly working-class housing complex in the affluent borough of Kensington and Chelsea and only last year, the whole building underwent renovations worth £8.7million. Unfortunately it appears that the millions of pounds that went into refurbishment were just to spruce up the outer appearance of the building, making it more aesthetically pleasing to those living in the affluent neighbourhoods surrounding it, rather than to make it safe and as disaster-proof as possible for the residents within. The cladding that was used on the outer building is actually even banned in the UK, making this whole situation so much worse.

Safety concerns from the residents went ignored by the local council (there were no sprinklers fitted in any of the flats and only ONE stairway in the entire 24-storey building) and it is only now, when people are dead for reasons that could have easily been avoided, that their cost-cutting, rich-pleasing ways have been brought to public attention in a way that they haven’t before.

Everything that has happened recently, for me anyway, highlights massively the extent of the problems that we are facing today. Extremism, terrorism, racism, classism, austerity… the list goes on, and as the list grows, it seems more and more people will end up dead before their time. It pains me to know that our children are growing up in a world that is bleeding and grieving from every possible angle. It breaks me to know that most of the world is living in a deep slumber, easily and willfully blaming one another for society’s problems, when the trouble actually comes from those much higher. 

I know it is so easy to say, but the only cure for healing the world is love. It is the only way. And for Britain, there’s always Jeremy Corbyn. I love that man. Until next time.

By Sabah Ismail

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons