Following the recent terror attacks in Manchester, the city has seen tremendous signs of support and unity in a variety of forms.
As well as flowers being laid, there have been murals painted, the bee tattoo taking off with proceed’s going to charity and famous Mancunian’s such as Liam Fray of The Courteeners, reading a heart-felt poem to 50,000 people at the weekend.
Support has come from all over the city, including different religions, ages and races.
One young Muslim man chose to make a poignant mark be entering Manchester City Centre blindfolded to give out as many hugs as possible.
Baktash Noori hoped to show that, with one kind act, how he and thousands of other Muslim’s from Manchester were hurting after the tragic events just like others.
Baktash has been stood, blindfolded, carrying a sign, which read ‘I’m Muslim and I trust you. Do you trust me enough for a hug?’
Speaking about his experience to the Manchester Evening News, Baktash described his experience saying:
The first 30 seconds were nerve-racking, but once I got that first hug with a lovely comment from that gentleman in my video, it made me feel a whole lot better.
With every hug, the comments I received were amazing, some were getting all teary and it’s not hard to tell by a person’s hug and tone of voice how much better their and my day became because of this.
I did not expect so many people to come and hug me, let alone give me such positive comments, but it was the best thing I’ve ever done.
Baktash, who posts videos on YouTube under the name Life of Bako, said that he hoped that his film would show how simple acts of contact can make a difference and unite the city’s communities, he added;
Muslims typically get represented by some as terrorists. Now usually when I see comments like this on social media when a tragic event happens I try and ignore it regardless of how much it gets to me, but after the incident that occurred in Manchester recently, it affected me a lot, so much hate crime and hate comments being shown all across the web and news it just hurts to see it all.
