We have to move on armed only with love
ON Thursday morning Nicole Kidman was in the papers AGAIN, in her umpteenth designer dress, promoting ANOTHER movie at Cannes.
How many films has she made? How many dresses does she own? The answer, BTW, is probably none – they’re all borrowed from the designers. And then I wondered, why am I thinking about something so superficial when 22 innocent people having the night of their lives, were slaughtered in Manchester? How can they celebrate the makebelieve of the movie industry when what happened on Monday night is worse than anything a Hollywood scriptwriter could make up? How can they pose and preen at the Hotel Du Cap when 10 months ago, just down the road in Nice, 86 people were mown down. How can they covet trophies, awarded just for doing their job, when a month ago 68 children lost their lives in a bus bombing in Syria? How can they party while Manchester mourns?
The answer is because they have to. We have to. Just as the people of Nice, Brussels and Paris, of Madrid and Stockholm, Berlin and London have done.
With the greatest, most profound respect for those whose lives have been lost, we have to move on. We have to love and cherish our fellow human beings while moving forward armed only with love and kindness.
At 11am on Thursday I was at my son’s – boys only – school, where the majority of pupils are Muslim. While I was there the tannoy system sparked into life.
A teacher addressed the boys and spoke of their pride at being British, acknowledging in the gentlest of ways that they must not allow what happened in Manchester to divide the school community.
It was followed by a minute’s silence. And then it was back to work and into the exam hall to sit their GCSEs.
These are lovely, respectful boys, my sons’ friends, the ones that always text a ‘thank you’ for a favour. They must not be tarred with the same brush as the people who have brutalised their faith.
We must move on and, without anger, carry on with our lives, our lifestyles, whatever they may be.
For me, Martine Wright, who lost both legs in the 7/7 London bombings of 2005 as she travelled to work on the Underground, is the embodiment of that. When she woke up after the blast her body was so swollen, she was unrecognisable.
Soon afterwards she was told: “Martine, you’ve been in an accident and we’ve had to take your legs away.”
Once an independent lady with a zest for life, she had to move back in with her parents, who had their house adapted to her needs. She has told me how hard that was, for all of them.
But she was determined to get fit and carry on from where she’d left off before the attack. I was awestruck by her energy and positivity. Twelve years on she is married, has an eight year-old son, and is a veteran of the 2012 Paralympic sitting volleyball team.
She has stayed in my mind all these years. She’s a definite two fingers up to those who think their cowardly acts can force us to change our lifestyles.
As, in a different way, is Nicole Kidman, I guess – flaunting her dresses, her body, and her glamorous, western ways in Cannes.
Cowardly acts musn’t force us to change our lifestyles