POST
PRODUCTION
SCRIPT
FOREIGN
CORRESPONDENT
2017
Manchester
United
30
mins 45 secs
©2017
ABC
Ultimo Centre
700
Harris Street Ultimo
NSW
2007 Australia
GPO
Box 9994
Sydney
NSW
2001 Australia
Phone: 61 2 8333 4383
Fax: 61 2 8333 4859
e-mail thompson.haydn@abc.net.au
Precis
|
After one of
its own sons bombed the Ariana Grande pop concert, killing 22 people and
injuring 116 more, the city of Manchester put on a brave face.
|
|
Night.
Manchester Arena/Attack footage |
[sirens] Music |
00:00 |
|
NEWS REPORT: Midnight
in the British city of Manchester where police are responding to what they
say is a serious incident at a concert venue. |
00:13 |
Mobile
phone footage. Panic in arena |
WOMAN AT CONCERT
VENUE: “What’s going on? Oh my God!” |
00:21 |
Manchester
GVs. Night./ GFX: Images inside
stadium projected on walls |
NEWS REPORT: Officers
report to an incident amid reports on social media of an explosion. HAMISH MACDONALD: The
attack on Manchester left 22 people dead - 116 people injured. They’d been
attending a concert by the American pop-star, Ariana Grande at the Manchester
Arena. |
00:26 |
|
It became the single
deadliest act of terrorism in the UK since the July 7 bombings of 2005. |
00:52 |
GFX: Boy at concert projected on wall of
building |
BOY AT CONCERT:
“Massive explosions. It was just loads of chaos and everyone was scared and
screaming”. [upset] |
01:02 |
GFX: Salman Abedi image projected on wall of
building |
HAMISH MACDONALD: The
suicide bomber is Salman Abedi, a 22 year old born in Manchester to Libyan
parents. |
01:09 |
GFX: Gaddafi projected over image of
Manchester. Night |
They’d fled the
Gaddafi regime, this city gave them a home. |
01:16 |
Burnham
faces press |
ANDY BURNHAM: “After
our darkest of nights, Manchester is today waking up to the most difficult of
dawns. |
01:21 |
GFX: Images of victims projected on building
wall |
It is hard to believe
what has happened here in the last few hours and to put into words the shock,
anger and hurt that we feel today”. |
01:28 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD: The
young, the hopeful, the innocent attacked on a night out. It provoked an
outpouring of national grief |
01:38 |
GFX: Images of protest projected on building
wall |
and for some, that
grief soon turned to anger. |
01:47 |
Macdonald
to camera on street. Night |
“The spotlight here
turned almost immediately to Manchester’s Muslim population and in
particular, the Libyans. These terrorist attacks are designed deliberately to
drive a wedge through communities, to pit everyone else against the Muslims
and they often work, creating fear and hatred. So that’s why I’ve come here
to find out if that’s actually what’s happening in Manchester and to find out
how the Muslims themselves are dealing with that”. |
01:56 |
Manchester
summer GVs. |
Music |
02:25 |
Title: |
|
02:32 |
Macdonald
driving. Super: |
|
02:36 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD: It’s summer in Britain. Time to get outside.
But this is a divided Britain, a troubled Britain, bruised by elections and
Brexit and battered after a run of terrorist attacks. |
02:50 |
|
There isn’t a lot to
celebrate right now, but there is a desire it seems to come together. Here in
Manchester, it’s only now after the story has moved on, the next terrorist
attack has happened elsewhere but the city is being left to get on with
things, to understand and maybe find meaning in what happened. |
03:12 |
James
vox pop |
JAMES: “Everyone has
properly stood together. You know like you’ve had a lot of unity in the face
of it really, you know? No one’s really being cowed by terror. Everyone’s
standing up all together”. |
03:39 |
Olivia
vox pop |
OLIVIA: “We’re just
such a close community and there’s so much diversity here together and
there’s just no hate at all here”. |
03:48 |
English
Defence League Rally |
Music |
03:53 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD:
That’s not quite how everyone sees it here. Far right groups, like the English
Defence League have been holding rallies. This one turned violent. |
03:57 |
GFX
Text projected on building wall: |
In the month after
the attack 224 incidences of anti-Muslim hate crimes were reported. That’s an
increase of 505% on the same period last year, |
04:15 |
Theresa
May walks |
and it’s not just on
the fringes. Britain’s Prime Minister says it’s time to talk about
Islam. |
04:29 |
Theresa
May at podium |
PRIME MINISTER
THERESA MAY: “There is to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in
our country. But it is time to say enough is enough. When it comes to taking
on extremism and terrorism, things need to change. That will require some
difficult and often embarrassing conversations”. |
04:35 |
Beth
vox pop at summer event |
BETH: “It’s been
difficult and some people behave differently to others. So some people are
rallying around and fighting spirit and Manchester come on let’s crack on as
normal, and other people including me are a little bit I guess taking a lot
longer over it”. HAMISH MACDONALD:
“Just explain that to me”. BETH: “It’s a… it’s
a, you know, a huge disaster, followed by huge disaster, |
04:54 |
|
followed by huge
disaster in the space of three weeks”. BETH’S FRIEND:
“People have been living as these communities together for many years |
05:18 |
Beth’s
friend |
but since the last, I
would say the 10 year period, has seen a development which has been
unprecedented in that way”. |
05:27 |
Flowers
left at attack site |
Music |
05:34 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD:
It’s clear Britain is having something of a moment. |
05:38 |
GFX.
Text over building wall: |
Four terrorist
attacks in just three months that left many questioning just how tolerant and
open this society should be. |
05:41 |
GFX:
Text over stills of attacks: |
First the Westminster
Bridge attack, then Manchester, the London Bridge attack and then a far right
extremist drove a truck into crowds praying at Finsbury Park Mosque. |
05:49 |
Summer
event |
ANDY BURNHAM: “All
around the world we see extremism on the rise. |
06:00 |
Burnham
at summer event |
The issue is how do
you respond and I think Manchester has shown it’s possible to find a better
response”. |
06:03 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Andy Burnham once had ambitions to lead Britain’s Labour Party. He recently
left national politics to become the first directly elected Mayor of
Manchester and he took up the job just weeks before this attack. |
06:09 |
Burnham
and Macdonald |
“You know Theresa May
-- putting politics aside --talked about a need to have a tougher
conversation. Certainly people we’ve met here have said you know maybe, maybe
there is a conversation to be had”. ANDY BURNHAM: “We do
need to have a difficult |
06:24 |
|
conversation about
what more we can all do to tackle extremism, extremism of any kind,
radicalisation. What more can communities do to spot that, to tackle that and
be honest about that”. |
06:36 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Manchester is a small city, just half a million people so this is one of
those places where everybody knows somebody who was there that night. |
06:48 |
Ariana Grande
Concert |
Hundreds of people
were caught up in this attack, |
07:00 |
Still.
Sumayya with friends |
including 15 year old
Sumayya. She’d waited months to see her idol, Ariana Grande. |
07:08 |
Gibran
and Sumayya |
SUMAYYA: “I was
waiting for Ariana Grande to come because I knew she was on tour and then I
begged my brother to buy me some tickets. |
07:14 |
|
As soon as the show
finished, |
07:21 |
|
we heard like a loud
bang sound, and like I thought was like a balloon or something. |
07:27 |
Mobile
phone footage of attack |
|
07:32 |
Sumayya |
Everyone was
screaming and I saw someone covered in blood”. |
0:36 |
Mobile
phone footage of attack |
|
07:39 |
Sumayya and Gibran |
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Sumayya and Gibran are still processing the impact of that night. |
07:44 |
Gibran |
GIBRAN: “I was
actually very, very grateful initially, then obviously after that when you
start to see the faces of the people who died and it really humanises it and
that’s… that’s when it starts to dawn on you that, you know, this is a, this
is really a kind of severe thing that we, we’d managed to escape and… and you
just feel, feel a lot of pain for the families because there was you know an
8 year old girl which is even younger than my sisters, the second death
reported was someone, a male who was 26 and obviously that could have been
me”. |
07:49 |
Macdonald
with Gibran and Sumayya |
HAMISH MACDONALD: “As
soon as this terrorist attack happened the conversation almost immediately
turned to, to Muslims and to young people being radicalised. How did you
interpret that conversation?” |
08:22 |
Gibran |
GIBRAN: “It was more
than strange, it was kind of hurtful because obviously I fit the description
in the sense because I’m Muslim, male, in my twenties, from Manchester, so
you know, there are a few similarities there. And unfortunately that
obviously makes other people maybe suspicious of people who fit my
description. So when I’m in a crowded place, people might look, look at me
suspiciously, particularly in the subsequent days after the attack”. |
08:34 |
Sumayya |
SUMAYYA: “These
people they look at me like… like… like… oh yeah you’re Muslim, you must be
like a terrorist or something. But I was like no I was a victim of the
attack. They attacked me and they say that I’m the same religion, like,
obviously, I’m not like part of that”. |
09:05 |
Muslim
woman walking on street |
HAMISH MACDONALD: “So
is that kind of suspicion exactly what the extremists want other Muslims to
feel?” GIBRAN: “I think
that’s their aim is to make us feel unwelcome, to make us think that, |
09:23 |
Gibran |
to divide us and make
non-Muslims look at Muslims in a certain way so then, then they obviously use
this as propaganda and say you know look at the way they look at you, this
isn’t your home. You know you may be born here and brought up here, but this
isn’t where you belong, come join us and those sorts of things. One moment
you’re a victim and the next you’re a suspect, you know that’s their aim so
you just need to be strong and make sure you don’t kind of succumb to that”. |
09:34 |
Manchester
skyline/Mosque interior |
Music |
10:03 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Muslims make up 5% of Britain’s population. In Manchester they make up 16%
and right now it’s the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Here in the North of
England, that means fast doesn’t break until just before 10 pm so these are
long days without food or water. |
10:14 |
Macdonald
visits Ghalbon family |
Tonight, I’ve been
invited to break the fast with the Ben Ghalbons, a well-known family of
Libyans here in Manchester. |
10:37 |
Hashem
prays |
|
10:52 |
Macdonald
and Ghalbon family share meal |
|
10:59 |
|
Like the family of
the bomber Salman Abedi, the Ben Ghalbons came here fleeing the regime of
Muammar Gadhafi. |
11:10 |
Hashem |
HASHEM GHALBON: “When
we came we were running away for our lives from a brutal regime that kills
its opponents, that hangs people in the streets and does all sorts of things.
Manchester asks you for nothing in return. You just sit, enjoy and be a good
citizen. So Manchester it ticks all the boxes, Hamish, if you like”. HAMISH MACDONALD:
“And you’re a Man U fan?” HASHEM GHALBON: “Of
course! Of course! |
11:16 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD:
“It’s very clear from talking to you that you’ve had a huge emotional
reaction to what’s happened here in Manchester”. |
11:43 |
|
HASHEM GHALBON: “The
first thing that came to mind this is, this is our city being terrorised by
one of our own. And where do you start? It’s just a feeling of shame. So it
is time that we do something in return, we do something to counter that and to
prevent it from ever happening again, Hamish”. |
11:50 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD: “Do
you think there’s been a sort of naivety or even a wilful ignorance about the
realities of what’s going on in the community?” HASHEM GHALBON: “I
think so. I mean now I would have to say there has been a naivety. I mean if
anybody has a monster in his own home, he needs to be aware of him. Help him,
report him, straighten him, whatever it takes”. |
12:15 |
Hashem
serves food |
HAMISH MACDONALD: I’m
interested to know if this is just Hashem’s view, an elder statesman of the
local Libyan community, or whether his nephew Abdul from a younger generation
thinks the same. “Between your point
of view and those extremist points of view there’s a really broad spectrum |
12:39 |
Abdul
at table |
of ideas and beliefs,
how do you determine the point at which you’ve got to shut that stuff down in
Western society?” ABDUL: “Yeah it’s a
hard one because I remember in Didsbury Mosque which is around the corner
from us here, in the early ‘90s at the end of the, I call it the first Afghan
War, there was, out of nowhere a load of you know Jihadi fighters ended up in
Manchester. |
12:58 |
|
Very quickly they
tried to take the mosque over and tried to impose their ideas and if you
didn’t pray a certain way, if you didn’t look a certain way, if you didn’t,
you know, talk a certain way you weren’t a Muslim. Maybe looking back then
you think in our naivety we let them have too much if you like, you know we
gave them too much benefit of the doubt”. |
13:28 |
Hashem
at table |
HASHEM GHALBON: “You
have to own up to what happened that was a Libyan who did it, and I think
possibly other society is right in telling, hey Libyans you know you have to
stand up and be counted here and own up to this”. |
13:49 |
Hashem
at table |
ABDUL: “You’re not
responsible for it, but it’s been done in your name”. |
14:08 |
Macdonald
at table |
HAMISH MACDONALD: “So
if there is a conversation that needs to be had, what is it?” |
14:11 |
Hashem |
HASHEM GHALBON: “You
cannot afford to be pacifist or take a back seat and leave the initiative to
others. Initiative is taken by the radical Muslims who are committing crimes
in your name, in your religion. Like it or not, it will turn around and you
will pay the price”. |
14:16 |
Macdonald
at table with family |
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Something Abdul said over dinner sparked my interest - the Didsbury mosque
had been infiltrated by Jihadists back in the ‘90s. |
14:34 |
Church |
Music |
14:43 |
GFX
Text on screen: |
HAMISH MACDONALD: Salman
Abedi used to worship here, his father was the Muezzin who performed the call
to prayer. |
14:48 |
GFX
Text on screen: |
Rumours of unchecked
radical elements in this mosque have rumbled around for years – but elders
deny them, saying they report any extremist views including those of Abedi to
the authorities. |
14:55 |
GFX
over map showing Afghanistan. Text: Map
showing Manchester UK |
But it turns out back
in 1989 after the Soviets left Afghanistan, at least 50 jihadist fighters did
appear at Didsbury Mosque, many were Libyan. Their influence has been felt
here ever since. These original Libyan jihadists were granted asylum in
Britain and largely left alone |
15:09 |
GFX
Text over still of Gaddafi. |
because they, like
the British Government, opposed Libya’s dictator, Colonel Gaddafi. And now
that’s being repeated all over again. |
15:29 |
Map
showing Libya |
During the Arab
Spring in Libya in 2011, droves of young British Libyan men went off to fight
and overthrow Gaddafi. Britain led the NATO intervention with airstrikes, but
it needed ground forces to do the real work. |
15:43 |
Macdonald
with Akram |
Men like Akram who
went from Manchester to fight. |
15:51 |
|
“Why were the British
authorities so relaxed about people going off to fight in Libya?” AKRAM: “They know
they’re going for a good cause, that’s I think the theory or that’s the
ideology at the time that we couldn’t get rid of Gaddafi ourselves, the
Libyan had to rise up first”. |
15:54 |
Libyan
uprising images projected on wall |
Music |
16:13 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD: We now
know some became radicalised while fighting there in Islamist militias, so
was it a mistake to let them go and then let them come back? |
16:20 |
Akram |
AKRAM: “I don’t think
it was a mistake. I think the mistake they made when people come back they
didn’t get their brains examined and checked out. I mean anybody who has been
to a war zone they need some psychotherapy to find out if he’s gone off the
bender or not”. |
16:31 |
GFX
Police images projected on wall |
HAMISH MACDONALD: Not
everyone who goes off to fight wants to bring the violence back home to
Britain, but counterterrorism forces can’t always tell the difference and
that carries enormous risks for countries like the UK. |
16:44 |
Akram
|
AKRAM: “These type of
guys felt isolated between their home and the UK, they’re not accepted in a
community here and they’re not accepted back home. Back home they call them
white Libyans and when they come here they call them terrorist Islamists or
fighters or whatever, so the lack of social cohesion with them and understanding
what’s gone wrong with them, it helps a lot of these recruiters to go in
their heads”. |
16:57 |
GFX
Projected on wall. Text: |
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Britain’s MI5 has identified 23,000 suspects of interest posing a terrorist threat,
but security experts say that is just the tip of the iceberg. After years of
failing to deal with extremism, the UK is now reaping the horrors. |
17:22 |
Iman
praying |
Victories against
ISIS on the ground in the Middle East have led to a heightened state of alert
in the West and when attacks do happen, security services play catch up. That
means acting fast to arrest and detain suspects. |
17:39 |
Iman.
Interview. Face obscured |
IMAN: “My name is
Iman. I’m from Libya originally and I’ve lived in the UK for over 12 years.
It’s what I call home. |
117:55 |
GFX:
Images of raid projected on brick wall |
Music |
18:09 |
|
IMAN: The raid and the way it happened it’s just
repeating itself constantly in my head, like from not being able to sleep to
being constantly alert, like… it’s like my brain is just on”. |
18:16 |
|
Music |
18:31 |
Iman.
Interview. Face obscured |
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Iman is terrified. She has never told the story of this raid until now. |
18:36 |
|
IMAN: “It was a
normal day really. I was kind of semi-awake and just out of nowhere, all of a
sudden I just hear a massive bang. |
18:42 |
|
It was so loud that
you couldn’t even tell where it was coming from. |
18:56 |
Raid
reconstruction. Super: Reconstruction |
Music |
19:00 |
|
IMAN: I looked down the stairs and I can just see
people just storming into the house”. |
19:04 |
GFX
On screen text projected on to brick wall: |
HAMISH MACDONALD:
It’s Sunday, 28th of May, six days after the suicide bomb went off at the
arena. |
19:09 |
GFX:
Raid footage projected on to brick wall |
Across Manchester and
the region, security services are conducting counter-terrorism raids,
desperate to understand if Salman Abedi was acting alone or as part of a
network. |
19:15 |
Iman
interview |
IMAN: “They were
storming up the stairs and, like, |
19:28 |
GFX:
Raid footage projected on to brick wall |
just the way they
looked and, like, they had masks on and I couldn’t even see their eyes”. HAMISH MACDONALD:
Iman is at home alone. Her street is cordoned off. She had gone to the same
college as Salman Abedi, but she says she had no contact and no relationship
with him. |
19:33 |
Reconstruction
of raid |
IMAN: “One of them
came in and he told me I was under arrest for being a suspected terrorist. |
19:49 |
Iman
interview |
[crying] I was just
looking at him like confused like, what are you saying? Like, like how, how
am I a suspected terrorist? I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to
do”. |
19:56 |
Islamic
artefacts/Koran |
|
20:25 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD: Of
the 22 arrested in these raids across Manchester, not a single person was
charged. IMAN: “You could have
just knocked on the door. |
20:30 |
Iman
interview |
We would have opened.
You would have asked as many questions as you wanted, we would have answered
and that’s it”. |
20:41 |
GFX:
Police presence footage projected on to brick wall |
HAMISH MACDONALD: The
British Government wants greater powers to conduct raids and detain terrorism
suspects. It also wants Muslim communities to play a bigger role in
monitoring extremism. |
20:49 |
Iman
interview |
“Does your experience
make you less likely or more likely to do that?” |
21:06 |
|
IMAN: “No I wouldn’t
actually do it because I mean if, especially with Salman, he was reported
five times so we did kind of raise awareness that this person has these
extreme views so in a way we are cooperating, we are kind of, you know,
speaking out”. |
21:11 |
GFX
Text over graphic: |
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Central to solving this problem of radicalisation in the west is the need for
security services to build confidence and trust with Muslim communities. |
21:37 |
|
Getting that right is
tricky because it’s exactly those relationships that come under pressure
every time there’s an attack. It also means looking at root causes like the
ideology that |
21:50 |
GFX
on screen text: |
underpins groups like
ISIS when they preach and recruit and that means talking |
22:00 |
Map
with text: |
about Saudi Arabia.
Since the 1960s the Saudis are said to have sponsored a multi-million dollar
effort to export Wahhabi Islam across the Islamic world, including in Muslim
communities in the West. |
22:06 |
On
screen text: |
Wahhabism is a strict
and overtly conservative interpretation of the faith and in the UK, |
22:21 |
GFX
currency. Text over: |
that Saudi money has
built mosques and Islamic schools which in turn have played host to extremist
preachers and the distribution of extremist literature. |
22:28 |
GFX:
British flag. Text over: |
Now, none of this
would be a surprise to the British Government. Downing Street has been
sitting on its own report for more than six months which details the foreign
funding of terrorism and extremism. |
22:41 |
On
screen text: |
Its publication is
deemed “too sensitive” for a government relying on the sale of billions of
dollars’ worth of arms to its Saudi ally. |
22:52 |
Manchester
streets GVs |
So what does this
mean in reality? On the streets of Manchester it’s the presence of an
increasingly conservative version of Islam. |
23:02 |
Amina |
AMINA LONE: “This is
not the time to start claiming victimhood. This is a time to be reflective
and say we need to take some ownership and actually collectively as a society
we need to stand up and address this problem”. |
23:11 |
Macdonald
with Amina on street |
HAMISH MACDONALD:
“Amina how difficult is it as a Muslim woman to talk about this stuff and
take the positon that you take?” AMINA LONE: “It is
really difficult, because you’re personally vilified and you’re
de-legitimised as a woman…” HAMISH MACDONALD:
Amina Lone is a politician on the local council. She runs a think tank and
she’s a Muslim. She’s prepared to say what few others will, that conservative
cultural practices within a faith could be connected to terrorism. |
23:22 |
|
AMINA LONE: “There is
a rise of fundamentalism across the globe and actually if we want to say that
these people are misrepresenting our faith, then we’ve got to show that our
faith isn’t what these people claim to be which is very black and white, very
politicised Islam”. |
23:51 |
Amina
driving to mosque |
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Today Amina is taking us to one of the local mosques. |
24:03 |
|
AMINA LONE: “So this
is the main road to Whalley Range, a lovely place to kind of live, but they
are probably the most conservative Muslim community within Manchester, in
this area”. |
24:11 |
Amina
gets out of car and put scarf over her head |
“Because I need to be
covered if I go into the mosque so you have to have your head covered and
your face, ah your arms and legs covered and stuff. So I will just cover up
like this. It should be sufficient”. |
24:25 |
Amina
and Macdonald on street |
HAMISH MACDONALD: “So
what are you going to find out now? Whether women are allowed in?” AMINA LONE: “Yeah,
just to see is there’s a space for women and kind of what they’re doing, you
know kind of see how they interact with us and you know I’m nervous”. HAMISH MACDONALD:
“All right. Let’s see”. |
24:39 |
Macdonald
and Amina walking to mosque |
AMINA LONE: “For
women there’s always a different entrance. Very, very rarely is it the same
entrance. I’ve been to mosques up and down this country and there’s not, and
actually I really find that... I find that you know… really objectionable”. |
24:52 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Right on cue, the local Imam turns up to greet us. |
25:03 |
Amina
with Imam |
AMINA LONE SUBTITLES:
“I want to see if they had a women’s section and if I can go in?” IMAM: “For prayers
I’m not sure that they have any…” AMINA LONE: “Yeah
they didn’t before, I mean from what I’ve known, but I just wanted to know if
they’d kind of opened it up yet”. IMAM: “Not that I
know… there are a few classrooms upstairs with lady teachers…” |
25:08 |
|
AMINA LONE: “And
normal prayers, you know for you know…” IMAM: “The daily
congregational prayers, I don’t think there is any ladies coming here at the
moment”. HAMISH MACDONALD: We
are invited in but without the camera. We’re told women are welcome here, but
in truth there is no designated prayer space for women and they cannot pray with
the men. |
25:19 |
Amina
and Macdonald on street |
AMINA LONE: “Yeah he
was friendly. I’m just going to take this off because I’m boiling now. He,
you know, very friendly, very open. You know what I mean he, they want to be
inclusive and they want people to know about it and you could see that he
said he didn’t want to misrepresent the mosque or the faith, but again didn’t
shake my hand, didn’t make much eye contact with me”. |
25:37 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD:
“And why does that matter? Why is that important? Because there are some that
would say well that’s, that’s just how the faith is practised here”. AMINA LONE: “Because
you know, you know what it matters because actually that, that may be how the
faith is practised here, but then people use that to bash Islam within terms
of you oppress your women, that you don’t believe in gender equality”. |
25:55 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD:
“How does that make you feel about your faith?” |
26:13 |
|
AMINA LONE: “It
always feels like you’re a second class citizen. You know we wouldn’t tolerate
separate entrances for blacks and whites, that was called apartheid you know
and yet somehow we kind of turn a blind eye when it’s part of a religious
reason and I just don’t think it’s good enough”. |
26:16 |
Group
of Muslim women cutting out hearts and writing notes |
Music |
26:28 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD: The
question of who owns and defines Islam has always been a difficult one for a
faith with no central authority, but for Muslims living in the West, events
are forcing them to confront that anyway. AMNA: “We need to be
doing something, we need to act on these issues and not be seen |
26:37 |
Amna |
to kind of take them
for granted, that they just happen and we don’t do anything to help”. |
26:53 |
Amna
and women at note writing group |
HAMISH MACDONALD:
Amna is a mother of two and a community psychologist. Together she and her
friends are writing letters and poems to the people of Manchester. |
27:02 |
Amna
reading note |
AMNA: “You have to find that place that brings out
the human in you, the soul in you, the love in you. From Manchester
Libyans”. |
27:14 |
Amna |
“We wanted to come
together and do a project called “Love Letters to Manchester”. So we’re
writing messages from all of us, we plan on going into the city centre and
basically giving out the scrolls that we’ve created here. I think the biggest
problem in terms of these issues has always been, you know, that online
radicalisation of how easy it is for young people to go and access incredibly
dangerous people”. |
27:21 |
|
HAMISH MACDONALD: “So
would you prefer that that sort of extremist online content is just removed
altogether from the internet?” AMNA: “Yeah. I mean I
don’t see why it should be in online spaces. If it’s extremist and it’s full
of hatred, it shouldn’t be online”. |
27:47 |
Note
writing group around table |
HAMISH MACDONALD: For
any parent explaining and interpreting terrorist attacks to children is a
challenge and for Muslim mothers, there’s an added dimension. |
28:01 |
Amna |
AMNA: “My eldest came
to me -- I think she must have been reading some comments on various
newspaper channels on line and she said to me, I can understand why they hate
us now and I was like, you know, that really… [upset] sorry. |
28:11 |
|
I just didn’t know
how to kind of deal with it apart from you know giving her that reassurance that
you know, that this is nothing to do with us. This isn’t about us. You know
this is about an individual who’s a psycho you know nobody could do this
unless they were completely unhinged, but I think there’s a lot of work for
us to do around young people’s identities in this country, especially when
they’re made to sometimes feel that they don’t actually belong here, but
actually they do and that’s, that’s what we need to be dealing with”. |
28:34 |
People
around fountain/Amna walks in park |
Music |
29:04 |
Amna
approaches people in park, hands out notes and scrolls |
AMNA: “We’re doing a project called Love Letters
to Manchester and we’re just giving out to people from Manchester a scroll
with some letters that were written by Libyan women from Manchester and girls
with some candles and just some sweets for everyone”. |
29:16 |
Muslim
women hand out scrolls and notes |
HAMISH MACDONALD: I
came here to find out what happens after the terror and what we’ve found is a
government demanding difficult and embarrassing conversation, all the while,
remaining silent on the influence of Saudi money and the fundamentalism it
exports here. We’ve found Muslims who genuinely want to engage in difficult
debates with the broader community, but still struggle to confront questions over
who defines their own faith and how. |
29:31 |
|
And in Manchester we
found a city still divided on the solutions, but in both grief and in spirit
– united. |
30:08 |
Credits: |
Reporter -
Hamish Macdonald Editor - Garth
Thomas Edit assistant – Jake Simpson Executive producer -Marianne Leitch abc.net.au/foreign © 2017 |
30:19 |
Out
point after credits: |
|
30:45 |