Manchester Arena - ongoing incident 22/5

I am personally going to say this. Racism is racism. If it's a suicide bomber or whether it's as banning Muslims. Or has no one watched Clybourne Park ? But I hope it this does not become a version of Europe in the early 1930's.  The bombings worry me but not as much as us vs them .

Sorry but Islamists is not a religion its a cult

Condemning an entire religion for the actions of so few would make about as much sense as condemning the male gender for the fact that the vast majority of terrorist attacks, mass shootings, murders etc. are committed by men. Muslims themselves have been targeted victims of these attacks in other countries. Whilst we need to ensure that the specific evil, radical rhetoric spewed by a subset of this religion is widely condemned, spreading hate to millions of innocent people does nothing except cause stuff like this to happen down the line.

I was at Ariana's concert two years ago in Manchester Arena. I am sick to my stomach. Security needs to be stepped up at concert venues, theatres and quite frankly everywhere. Unfortunately, we do not live in the world we lived in five years ago where these things wouldn't even be at the back of your mind. I am aware that this attack did not happen inside the arena, but seemingly in the foyer, but security measures can still be in place and need to be in place.

My thoughts are with the injured, family and friends of the dead and Ariana herself who is just a young woman and must be going through so much right now.

Part of me thinks that stopping the spreading of photos and videos of the incidents would be at least a minor help. Obviously they will be spread on social media and nobody can stop that but what is the use of seeing videos of young children/teenagers screaming and running on the news? To build awareness to the general public who can do absolutely nothing to stop this? I have avoided looking at any photos/videos and I'm still fully aware of how barbaric what has happened is. In my mind, all showing this stuff over and over on news channels does is show potential terrorists what is possible for them and emboldens them. Would we have had so many attacks happening over the last few years if they hadn't all been SO widely publicized?

What's more, I worry about the effect that seeing these images on a regular basis is having on the mental health of the public. It has not been that long that we have had television and the internet and the internet on our phones. I don't see how being unable to avoid these images is going to do anything to help depression and depression can lead to extremely negative consequences, where people feel the need to hurt themselves and occasionally others. It just seems like a vicious, vicious cycle. Right now, every time I go to search for something on Twitter I am faced with an autoplay video of people running from the explosion. Who is this helping?

Seriously, Mods?

Horrified, the arena is the sister venue to where I work and I have friends and colleagues who would have been working on the show.

My deepest sympathies lie with those injured, the loved ones of those killed and those still missing.

I despair for the state of the world. There isn't any obvious solutions to the hatred that causes such atrocities, but adding to the hatred by calling out entire sections of the population will not help.

We don't yet know who did this or who planned it or why.

oxfordsimon has been fairly clear in separating out Islamism from Islam. The latter is a religion followed by millions of people who exist peacefully and don't deserve to have their religion sullied by the acts of a few terrible people who use the religion as an excuse to commit atrocities but would absolutely find another excuse if they didn't have the religious thing to hold on to. These few terrible people are Islam*ists*. Clearly from your response Simon could have been even clearer in distinguishing between the two, but I don't believe he's saying anything about Islam or Muslims.

Nothing to add really, but this is an extremely true point. Wild speculation is as harmful as fake news (and says a lot about the people doing the speculating).

With the obvious thoughts to those killed injured, and their relatives (particularly those still wondering/separated from their families which is unimaginably frightening) my thoughts are also with the arena staff and crew who-along with the as ever amazing emergency services-were doing what they are there to do, help in an emergency. Lots of us have worked front of house at venues, and indeed back of house and something like this you dread. So well done to all those working in the arena who did what they had to last night.

Also heart-warming in all this to hear people around Manchester helping out- from free taxis to people opening their homes, I've also just shared on twitter a link to Sikh temples who are offering food to people/emergency services. It's horrendous what has happened but the good in people we see as well gives me hope.

If you find one let us know, I loathe large arena events but I'd happily go to several in defiance.

Many of us lived through the IRA bombings of the last part of the twentieth century and we didn't blame all Irish people or Catholics, so lets not do that now with followers of Islam.

There are evil people in all walks of life and it is those with evil in their hearts who commit these atrocities, they just need an excuse to dress it up with.

Let us think about the people who will not return home from what should have been an innocent night out watching a popular singer. Many of us could have been caught up in such an event. People like Martyn Hett, who I've only met once or twice as a friend of a friend, we were due to be in the same party on Sunday I think, but Martyn has not been seen or heard of from since the concert when he was split up from his friend.