Nadhim Zahawi
As with the Manchester bomber, I’m the child of refugees fleeing a dictator, but I love my host country
My family and I arrived in Britain in 1978, when I was just nine. Like the parents of Salman Abedi, the perpetrator of Monday’s barbaric attack on Manchester Arena, who fled Gaddafi’s Libya for the UK, we were refugees from a murderous dictatorship which was hell-bent on persecuting its opponents and consolidating its power by force.
In my case, we were escaping the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. My parents were told that Hussein’s thugs were about to arrest them, their only crime being that they were Kurdish, so we packed our bags and fled Baghdad for Britain overnight.
No doubt like Abedi’s parents too, we were greeted by the UK with warmth and seemingly endless opportunities. I was provided with the chance to go to university, to found a business and ultimately to become a member of Parliament. I owe everything to the open-mindedness, generosity and fairness of Britain and its people, and I am profoundly grateful.
My experience is not unusual. Refugees come here for many reasons, but they all come to a country whose inherent values are about protecting the vulnerable, and giving everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, the freedom and the opportunity to prosper.
This is why I am a proud British citizen, why all refugees should feel lucky to be allowed to start a new life in Britain.
It is also another reason why Abedi’s appalling crimes are so outrageous, the betrayal of his country so sickening. As the child of refugees, his family had been welcomed. And yet, instead of embracing everything that Britain had to offer, he saw the normality of British life, the innocent excitement and happiness of young children and their parents attending a concert by their favourite singer, and decided to bring it all to a terrible end.
The statement released by Daesh claiming responsibility referenced “foreign wars” as an explanation for the attack, and Jeremy Corbyn has shamefully seized on this to support his own naive world view, where the West is to blame for every outrage perpetrated against it.
But more revealing was how Daesh described the parents and children murdered: as “crusaders” attending a “shameless concert arena”. The simple truth is that Abedi hated all of us because of the way we live, the values we hold, and the freedoms we enjoy.
Details of how Abedi was radicalised and who he was trained by will continue to emerge; and how we can combat the indoctrination of young Muslims will be endlessly debated. But we shouldn’t ignore how extraordinary it is that Abedi could be so ungrateful, so ignorant of what our country has really given him.
Britain’s intervention in his parents’ home country was no justification, of course. It is believed that Abedi’s family returned to Libya when Gaddafi was overthrown by the rebels in 2011, after Britain stepped in to stop hundreds of thousands being murdered, as the tyrant’s army marched on Benghazi, pledging to wipe out all of those who protested against his dictatorship.
How utterly misguided it would be to blame an intervention to preserve life in Libya, requested by the Arab League and backed by the United Nations, for this terrible act.
I also cannot understand why some politicians seek to explain away Abedi’s crimes as somehow a consequence of our own failures.
All I can see is an honourable country, providing refuge and the chance to build a new life.
It is right to review security arrangements at major events and potential targets in light of the events in Manchester, and we must take the necessary steps to ensure that everyone is as safe as possible when going about their daily lives.
Our security services and our police are outstanding public servants, and are truly the best of British – if they say they need more support then we should provide it. However, I still believe we should do nothing to fundamentally change the great country that we are.
We should always prioritise safety, but we should continue to give our children the freedom to express and enjoy themselves. We should continue to remain united, as Manchester has demonstrated in the aftermath of this terrorist attack. We should continue to give everyone lucky enough to be part of our country the welcome that we always have done, no matter where they’re from.
And we should continue to expect those we take in to be thankful for it.