If Manchester needs strength in the days and months ahead to deal with the pain and the grief of Monday's horrific terrorist attack, its residents should look no further than the company they now share.
London has endured. So has Madrid. So has Oslo. Beirut and Jerusalem remain. Boston was and is strong, as are Paris, Nice and Quebec City. In the last 16 years, New York has endured an attack that killed thousands and took down its two tallest skyscrapers, a financial calamity that nearly brought the world's economy to its knees and a storm that caused $70 billion in damage.
All of these cities, and many more around the world, have suffered through horrific atrocities committed by one man or a group of men filled with hate and eager to kill others for reasons that have nothing to do with religion or ideology. They just want to see the world burn. If they could, they would murder millions.
Manchester stood its ground immediately. Reports noted that the city's cab drivers, many of whom are Muslim, turned off their meters that night and drove people where they needed to be for free. The city's food truck vendors, many of them from ethnic minorities, opened their stalls and offered free meals until the food ran out. Blood donors were turned away Tuesday morning because too many people had given already.
Around the world, including throughout the Middle East, tributes and vigils were held.
Sadly, Ariana Grande, the American pop superstar, decided to suspend her world tour until June 5 after 22 people were killed and dozens more seriously injured while leaving her concert.
She had been scheduled to play London Thursday and Friday night before moving on into Europe.
It was people who love her and love her music who died and who were hurt so badly Monday. Her sorrow and her concern it may happen again are insignificant. Her Twitter posts that she has no words and is broken by what happened are not enough. Like the people of Manchester, she should have carried on. If she really wanted to be a Dangerous Woman, the name of her tour and most recent album, she should have taken the stage Thursday and Friday night in London and given the performances of her life, in tribute to her fans, the living and the dead.
It is time like these that people need the musicians most. The show must go on, not to brush what happened away but to face it head on. Any concert or large gathering to hear music, or to watch actors or athletes, is a celebration, a peaceful communal experience to connect with one another and to lift our souls.
It is these moments of humanity the madmen are trying to crush.
People coming together in large groups to simultaneously celebrate and grieve is seen across all cultures. Music is a constant at those events. In our darkest hours, both individually and collectively, music draws forth the tears and the smiles.
The night after the attack, two Canadian acts took to the stage at separate venues in Manchester to play their previously scheduled shows.
"It's really scary that that happened, but I think the worst thing to do would be to just stay in in fear and not do something because you're afraid. Because that's what these extremists want," Halifax's Mo Kelly told the CBC before her concert.
Toronto's Broken Social Scene also went ahead with their Manchester show Tuesday.
"Tonight, we play for the hearts of Manchester," the band said on Twitter hours before the show.
Johnny Marr, one of Manchester's rock heroes, joined the band on stage for a song.
"What's most important is tonight we're here together, all of us," singer and guitarist Kevin Drew told the crowd.
That's what's most important each day and night, in every community where people congregate to be together, to enjoy music and the pleasure of each other's company. That's the part every musician and every citizen, whether they are in Prince George or anywhere else in the world, can do to stand with Manchester and to oppose terror and violence.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
