Close to Home: United with Manchester once more — this time in grief

Manchester, England now joins a long list of cities - New York, London, Paris, Madrid and beyond - where terrorists have set off explosive devices, killed thousands, wounded many more and sent shock waves through neighborhoods, homes, churches, synagogues and mosques.

The terrorist attack in Manchester on Monday hit me hard. I lived there from 1964 to 1967, attended the University of Manchester and went to music events almost every weekend. Manchester still feels like home.

The people of Manchester, the Mancunians as they call themselves, are my family. My heart goes out to all of them, whether they have lost someone near and dear or, like me, feel that our city has been beaten down but is yet unbroken.

Welcome to World War III, a war like our own Civil War and like World War I and World War II, in which citizens are targeted by soldiers and the homes of citizens are bombed to the ground. In this war that seems to have no end, civil liberties and civil rights have been abrogated. Anyone who goes to an airport and moves through security knows this. Anyone who is stopped and is questioned by the police also surely knows it. In this war there is no choice but to give up some liberties for some securities and to maintain a kind of eternal vigilance.

At the same time, we must preserve our civil rights, our civil liberties and the civilities we show one another every day. If we don't preserve them, we become like the terrorists and the tyrants we oppose all over the world. We walk a fine line, but walk it we must. It is up to each and every individual to remember our sovereignties and our liberties.

I will never forget Manchester, now more than ever before, Manchester of the factories and the mills, the rows of redbrick houses and the slums. I won't forget ugly Manchester that boasted a strange kind of beauty, and I will always remember the football team, Manchester United, the pubs, the public transportation I took everywhere, and my flat that I rented for $25 a month. There has always been a kind of camaraderie that united the city no matter what, a city that refused to play second fiddle to London and thought that it was as great as any metropolitan center anywhere.

Now, we will see what Manchester and the Mancunians are really made up. Now the world will see a city that has for the most part been invisible but that will be held up for all the world to see and admire.

Jonah Raskin taught at Sonoma State University for 30 years. He is the author of 14 books. His Ph.D. is from the University of Manchester, England where he also taught Shakespeare.