WAKE UP EVERYBODY
BY
( 1975 )
Wake up everybody no more sleepin' in bed
No more backward thinkin' time for thinkin' ahead
The world has changed so very much
From what it used to be
There is so much hatred war and poverty
Wake up all the teachers time to teach a new way
Maybe then they'll listen to whatcha have to say
Cause they're the ones who's coming up
And the world is in their hands
When you teach the children
Teach em the very best you can.
The world won't get no better
If we just let it be
The world won't get no better
We gotta change it yeah
Just you and me
Wake up all the doctors make the old' people well
They're the ones who suffer an' who catch all the hell
But they don't have so very long before the Judgement Day
So won'tcha make them happy before they pass away
Wake up all the builders time to build a new land
I know we can do it if we all lend a hand
The only thing we have to do is put it in our mind
Surely things will work out
they do it every time
The world won't get no better
If we just let it be
The world won't get no better
We gotta change it, yeah
Just you and me
A Letter To The Terrorists
Hassan, a young Muslim born and raised in Yorkshire,
offers a heartfelt response to last week's attacks on London
Friday July 15, 2005
The Guardian
Dear dead or alive terrorists (As Salaam Alaikum doesn't apply to you),
Just wanted you to know I'm a young Muslim and I heard about you on the news
again today. We all did. It's so painful to know I've grown up so close to
the same Leeds streets as you. I was born in the same hospital as one of
you, St Luke's, but we took different routes in life. Somehow ... life will
go on. And in my heart, I really believe that one day London and all of us
will be stronger. But never because of you and what you have done.
I can confirm that since that morning of Thursday July 7, you have not saved
one single Muslim's life in your phoney war for freedom. A war which targets
innocent people whose biggest crime was to have a job to go to on a Thursday
morning. With so many people committed to peacefully fighting hatred against
Muslims all over the world, why bring us more suffering by killing innocent
people in London? You are not martyrs for Islam. You don't even represent
your own hard-working mums and dads. I'm glad to know that so many Muslims
across this country will march against you. And I pray that millions more
people, millions and millions, across the entire world, will march against
you and your evil. Because you are not now, and never will be, Muslims to
me. You're confused, over-sized boys, who will never know the magnitude of
what you have done to so many innocent people, people that you never even
knew.
I was 15 when I first visited London alone. I doubt you've ever seen the
wonderful sights I've seen there over the years. I'm not even talking about
the guided tour of Women's Achievements in Science at the Science Museum, or
reading the actual words of real freedom fighters in the British Library.
I'm talking about the simple joy of sitting upstairs at the front of a
double-decker London bus, and gliding effortlessly back and forth over the
bridges of the River Thames. It takes less than a minute to do this by bus,
but the journey to success takes several generations for some people. And
some of us still haven't quite made it, but we will. I will.
In April of this year, I took a business student from Afghanistan to visit
London. Sitting on a Northern Line tube train my jaw suddenly dropped when
Ian Brown, the singer from The Stone Roses, came and sat opposite us. Ian
and I exchanged nods and I went and sat next to him and told him how much I
respected his music. We talked on the platform, swapped emails, and Ian
embraced us and said As Salaam Alaikum (Peace Be Unto You), before we even
said it to him. I keep playing I Am The Resurrection by The Stone Roses. I
used to cheer during the chorus, now it brings me to tears.
Last Thursday morning July 7, I had an appointment at the Royal London
Homeopathic hospital in Great Ormond Street. It's very close to Tavistock
Square and Russell Square tube station. A short time before I was to travel,
the doctor cancelled my appointment against my wishes. A lot of Londoners
are silently repeating to themselves again and again that they might be dead
now, were it not for whatever small miracle it was that stopped them from
getting on to a bus or tube train with you last Thursday morning. I was so
overjoyed to have met a northern soul like Ian Brown on the tube train one
morning in April. I'm so sorry that so many people met your sorry selves one
morning in July, and for the memories you have resurrected within me.
On May 11 2005, I stood at a memorial service for 56 people who were killed
in the Bradford City fire 20 years before. Football was my whole life back
then. At the memorial service for that terrible, terrible tragedy, I
suddenly realised for the first time that what I saw happen in less than
five minutes on May 11 1985, had destroyed my ambitions of wanting to become
the greatest Muslim footballer the world has ever seen. I wonder just how
many young Muslims will one day look back on their lives and think that what
you tried to do in their name last Thursday morning stopped them from
achieving their dreams?
When I visit London now I go to an Aston Martin dealer and stare through the
window at my gleaming ambition. I've never been that materialistic, but I
need something, some kind of tool to improve my self-esteem. A lot of young
Muslims are going to need something to keep them going through all this now,
because of what you've done. In my own way, I hope they just innocently get
on a London bus and sit upstairs at the front with me. And dream. Just dream
... that hundreds and hundreds more miracles, meant that it all never
happened last Thursday.
I don't care where you've been or what you plan to do ...
I am the resurrection and I am the life
I couldn't ever bring myself to hate you as I'd like
(from I Am The Resurrection by The Stone Roses)
Hassan [his only name] Bradford,
July 14 2005
Sharing an amazing letter:
From: Fatherr Doug Robins
Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2005 11:32 PM
Dear Editor,
God moves in a mysterious way...
I had prepared a sermon for the Sunday morning service here at Gerrans, in Cornwall, although I wasn't too happy with it. Finding myself with a few minutes on hand before the service this morning I decided to check my e mails. There was just one. A friend had sent me a copy of Hassan's letter in last Friday's Guardian addressed to the 'dead or alive terrorists'. I was very moved by it and immediately decided (was prompted) to dump my sermon and read the letter. In fact I had difficulty in controlloing my emotions while reading it. The members of my congregation, probably categorised as mainly right of centre, were visibly moved by what Hassan had written. One of our visitors told me as he was leaving that before hearing the letter he would just have said that he came from Yorkshire, but after hearing it he felt he needed to say he lived in the same street as one of the bombers. I thank God for Hassan and for what he wrote and your newspaper for printing it.
Father Doug Robins.
