Pictures Tell Terrorists 'We're Not Afraid'

ByABC News via logo
July 14, 2005, 7:45 AM

July 14, 2005 — -- Alfie Dennen is looking for people like him who are not afraid.

After last week's London bombings, Dennen, who lives and works in London, decided he wanted to spread his message to terrorists and the rest of the world, that he is not afraid.

Dennen's first message of "fearlessness" was a photo he posted to a Web site he created called "werenotafraid.com" featuring a friend pictured in one of the London underground stations with smoke billowing out from behind him, a sock in his mouth, and the words "We're Not Afraid" spread across the image.

One week later, Dennen and a team of 10 workers are fielding five or six images a minute, having received upward of 7,000 images to date.

"It kind of occurred to me that it would be an amazing thing to have a place where people can send their own images of support which would be inspirational," Dennen said. "And I thought that not being afraid of this and not letting it affect us would be the right sort of sentiment to hit."

Dennen's message has hit home with people everywhere.

After discovering Dennen's Web site on a blog, Marg Whelan submitted a photo of her and her children and superimposed the message "Not Afraid, Freedom Kicks A**" on her son's T-shirt.

"The pictures I saw on there were so inspiring and so filled with hope in different aspects of people's lives," said Whelan.

As the creative images of courage continue to roll in, Dennen says his team looks at each one and reads every e-mail so it can weed out any anti-Muslim messages.

"There's no place for it anywhere in this world," said Dennen.

Instead, werenotafraid.com is focusing on keeping fear out of people's lives.

"I like to think that 'We're Not Afraid' is helping." Dennen added. "I like to think that people will come away with a feeling of, 'I can deal with it a littler bit more and I can deal with it in the right way,' which is not to go through my following days in fear."