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For Manchester, as for Its Libyans, a Test of Faith - The New York Times

posted onMay 26, 2017
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Article snippet: MANCHESTER, England — The stretch of Wilmslow Road that runs through the Rusholme neighborhood, south of the city center, is known as the Curry Mile, thanks to the Indian and Pakistani restaurants that have been here for decades. But that label no longer seems to do the place justice. Kurdish barbers sit next to stores selling shimmering saris. An Islamic bookstore faces a Jamaican supermarket. The air carries the sweet scent of shisha, emanating from cafes named after Damascus and Dubai. The food is from Tunisia, Vietnam and all points in between. These few blocks contain a whole world. And part of that world are the 10,000 or so Libyans in Manchester, the largest community outside Muammar el-Qaddafi’s brutal regime and have been here for decades, a quiet presence in the city, well woven into Manchester’s fabric. Now, a British citizen of Libyan descent, Salman Abedi, has inflicted the most grievous pain on the place that raised him. On Monday night, he detonated a bomb full of nails, bolts and ball bearings at the Manchester Arena, killing 22 people and injuring dozens more. He attacked not just a concert venue. He attacked a city and its sense of self as the proudly cosmopolitan, multicultural capital of northern England. The Manchester still reeling from Monday night’s terrorist attack is not the decaying postindustrial wasteland of the 1970s. Nor is it the Ecstasy-fueled party city that emerged a decade later, or the gang-ridden gun crime capital of Britain ... Link to the full article to read more

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