MANCHESTER // Muslim groups, Christian pastors, Jewish community leaders and devout Hindus were all gathered in Manchester’s St Ann’s Square for a memorial event for those killed in the terror attack.
The vigil, organised by the Ramadhan Foundation, a local Muslim non-profit, was held on Wednesday night amid a mixed mood of apprehension and assurance.
As populist nationalism surges across the western world, and as the UK heads into a general election in two weeks, Manchester’s Muslims were eager to separate their religion from the acts of violence committed in its name.
Police have identified 22-year-old Salman Abedi, a man of Libyan descent, as the suicide bomber who killed 22 people at the Manchester Arena on Monday night.
Ten others, including two of Abedi’s brothers, are still in custody in Manchester and in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, and police have suggested that a support network helped Abedi carry out the attack. Another woman who was detained in Manchester has been released.
Manchester’s community of British Libyans issued a statement condemning the bomber’s actions.
“This attack was an attack on all of us … All those responsible for senselessly destroying the lives of innocent people do not deserve to live in our community and should be behind bars,” it said.
At St Ann’s Square in the centre of the city, Mansoor Ahmad Khan, the regional head of Al Islam, an association of Ahmadiyya Muslims, admitted to feeling concern about the public image of Muslims after terror attacks.
"Whenever such things happen, you know, there's a worry," Mr Khan told The National. "There's a worry that people will begin to think badly of us as a group, or they will use this as an excuse to discriminate."
Although Manchester has been mostly peaceful since the attack, several incidents have jittered the nerves of the city’s Muslims.
On Tuesday, the English Defence League (EDL), a nationalist group, staged a protest urging people to “stand up to Islamism”.
In a separate incident, a pedestrian shouted at a 14-year-old girl walking to the Manchester Islamic High School for Girls: “When are you going to stop bombing people?”
“What’s the point of reacting?” Mona Mohamed, the head teacher at the school, said in a radio interview. “That’s not the way we’re going to tackle terrorism.”
The door of a local mosque was also burnt down early on Wednesday morning, although the mosque’s imam, Mohammad Sadiq, did not know if it was connected to the bomb attack.
Mr Khan worries about such incidents as well as larger political repercussions.
The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), a far-right party that won 12.6 per cent of the national vote in the 2015 election, has already pointed to Islamic schools as a threat to the country and wants to ban the full-face veil.
One of its parliamentary candidates for the upcoming election, Anne Marie Waters, tweeted last year: “The only ‘evil’ we have legalised is Islam.”
At the moment, UKIP is polling at less than five per cent, according to polling agency YouGov.
The hope is that more voters do not allow themselves to be influenced by the Manchester attack and move towards UKIP, said Najib, a taxi driver from Kurdistan who identified himself only by one name.
Najib moved to Manchester 19 years ago, and he fears that such attacks will bolster the UK’s wariness of immigrants. “This country has been very good to me. But I hope it won’t close itself off,” he said.
Aside from UKIP, British politics is tussling with the question of how open its borders should be.
The success of the “Leave” campaign in last year’s Brexit referendum was driven, in large part, by its argument that the country would be more secure if its borders were less porous to immigrants streaming in from the Middle East through Europe.
Ahead of next month’s election, prime minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party has pledged to slash annual net immigration to figures in the tens of thousands rather than in the hundreds of thousands.
Muslims who are already in the UK, including those who have never lived anywhere else, hope they will not have to contend with a rise in anti-Islam sentiment.
One of the participants in Wednesday’s vigil at St Ann’s Square was Gulnar Bano Kham Ghadri, a born-and-bred Mancunian who helps set up community non-profits.
Ms Ghadri recalled how, after 9/11, she faced derisive and abusive comments from passers-by: “‘Oh, look at you, Paki, with your [head] scarf,’ they’d say.”
She wore a headscarf on Wednesday as well – except it was a silken Union Jack flag.
After the Manchester attack, Ms Ghadri said, “I’ve actually received more respect than normal. I’ve been on trains and trams, in hospitals and on buses, I’ve been to a lot of places. And I’ve been treated so well.”
“It’s really, really unique. But that’s Manchester.”
ssubramanian@thenational.ae
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The Bio
Favourite Emirati dish: I have so many because it has a lot of herbs and vegetables. Harees (oats with chicken) is one of them
Favourite place to go to: Dubai Mall because it has lots of sports shops.
Her motivation: My performance because I know that whatever I do, if I put the effort in, I’ll get results
During her free time: I like to drink coffee - a latte no sugar and no flavours. I do not like cold drinks
Pet peeve: That with every meal they give you a fries and Pepsi. That is so unhealthy
Advice to anyone who wants to be an ironman: Go for the goal. If you are consistent, you will get there. With the first one, it might not be what they want but they should start and just do it
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The Written World: How Literature Shaped History
Martin Puchner
Granta
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20myZoi%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202021%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Syed%20Ali%2C%20Christian%20Buchholz%2C%20Shanawaz%20Rouf%2C%20Arsalan%20Siddiqui%2C%20Nabid%20Hassan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2037%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Initial%20undisclosed%20funding%20from%20SC%20Ventures%3B%20second%20round%20of%20funding%20totalling%20%2414%20million%20from%20a%20consortium%20of%20SBI%2C%20a%20Japanese%20VC%20firm%2C%20and%20SC%20Venture%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
