In showing her fans how not to give in to rage, Ariana Grande has proved she is no fluffy pop princess

IHAVE to admit that until this week I didn’t think much of Pop Princess Ariana Grande. Granted I’m not exactly her target market but if you had asked me about her or Justin Bieber or any of those cheery purveyors of bubblegum pop, I’d have very little positive to say.

In fact, I would probably have snarked about manufactured pop acts commercialising childhood, and vented more spleen on how their tacky, branded merchandise from perfume to baseball caps turns innocent children into grasping consumers, while shaking their indulgent parents down for every last cent.

But that was before Manchester, when a homemade nail bomb killed 22 people, including children, and whose aftermath showed me the steely grit and true substance of the diminutive Ariana Grande.

The 23-year-old Grande did not have to return to the city of the massacre and visit her fans in hospital, never mind take time out to visit the family of Martyn Hett, one of the first victims to be named.

Emotive

Nor did she have to headline last night’s spectacular One Love benefit concert which brought so many singers and musicians together in a show of unity and magnanimity to rival Live Aid.

Without Ariana’s emotive presence, rumours would not have swirled endlessly over the weekend about a reunion between the permanently feuding Gallagher brothers, Noel and Liam.

She was the catalyst for an all-star lineup of Coldplay, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and Take That coming together overnight, guaranteeing a global TV audience of hundreds of millions for last night’s extravaganza.

Ariana drew criticism from some quarters for fleeing Manchester so promptly after the terrorist attack, but it was unfair.

It ignored how shocked and traumatised she was by the barbarity unleashed at her concert.

The sounds of bomb blast and wailing children injured from flying shrapnel or dying in their parents’ arms must have been devastating. She also had the sickening realisation that her concert was used as a means of wreaking such heartbreak and murder.

She is an entertainer, after all; her music may not be to everyone’s taste but it is meant to brighten up young lives, not shroud them in darkness and pain. Unlike some musicians whose names we won’t mention here, Ariana Grande has never pretended to be a great humanitarian or social justice crusader.

She could not be accused of moral cowardice or selling out on her ideals by beating a hasty retreat from the scene of carnage.

In fact, had she publicly vowed never again to perform in Manchester or to even set foot again on British soil, it would be seen as nothing more than the understandable reaction of a young woman who had been pushed over her limit and was terrified at the thought of a repeat atrocity.

The fact though that Ariana picked herself up after her anguished tweets to return to the proverbial scene of the crime and devise a concert for the benefit of her distressed fans shows great guts and determination.

Now I don’t doubt that there was a proverbial ring of steel around the Old Trafford cricket ground last night. The dreadful terrorist rampage on London bridge on the eve of the concert, which in some ways seemed like an act of intimidation against the all-star line-up and its audience, ensured that security was stepped up even further and that not so much as a fly got past the cordon sanitaire.

Murderous

I’m sure also that as Ariana and her entourage arrived in Manchester and toured the Salford Royal hospital, she saw enough metal detectors, body searches, security checks and armed police to last her a lifetime.

But that doesn’t mean that she hasn’t taken an enormous personal risk coming to Manchester or that, God forbid, some time in the future some murderous soldier of Isis might target her in reprisal for last night’s act of defiance.

In the world we now inhabit, with terrorism and extremism on the rise, venge- ance takes many forms and until it is unleashed, most of its targets are unimaginable.

If Ariana and, indeed, any of the other star-studded acts from last night’s concert become symbolic in the minds of our enemies of the decadent, infidel West, who knows how they may be punished.

Their fearlessness means that they also become emblematic of the West’s refusal to capitulate to the terrorist threat or be browbeaten into not carrying on as normal.

Like the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and satirists who insisted on bringing out their magazine days after their colleagues were murdered in cold blood. Or the Eagles Of Death Metal, who performed for still-grieving fans in Paris months after the Bataclan attack and the series of coordinated strikes which wiped out 130 lives, injuring 352 others.

Or the ordinary New Yorkers who picked their way through the dust-cloaked, rubble-strewn streets of Manhattan in the aftermath of 9/11 and returned to work, Ariana is playing her part in defeating Isis and hardline Islam.

Loathsome

She is showing her young fans, in particular, not to give into feelings of terror or rage at the act of savagery that occurred in the Manchester Arena.

For that is the path to more atavistic hate and divisions which is exactly what the terrorists seek.

Dr Naveed Yasin, a trauma surgeon at Manchester Hospital, was racially abused and called a terrorist just hours after completing a 48-hour stint saving the lives of the concert-going victims.

A white, middle-aged van driver lowered his window and hurled racial obscenities at Dr Yasin, who was born and raised in Yorkshire, roaring at him to ‘go back to your own country , you terrorist. We don’t want you people here’.

The van driver may not have realised it but his crude display of intolerance and prejudice meant that he played right into the hands of the loathsome terrorists.

He assisted in their campaign to drive a wedge between people, make minorities feel under threat and hopefully send them careering into the waiting arms of the extremists.

Such is how hardline Islam may win the brutal war it has waged in the West.

Ariana’s way – of fearlessly continuing to do what she loves while supporting the bomb victims – is a celebration of what’s best about Western culture.

With people like her to fly the flag of freedom, we will never be crushed.