Christchurch

Paul from Devonport

TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF A STARK REALITY


Dear friends and neighbours, I usually write about sport once a week as ‘The Spotter’ for the site, sportsfreak.co.nz. However that seems so trivial right at this time. In my work as a teacher in Auckland I have had literally hundreds of students of the Muslim faith. I cannot imagine the confusion, hopelessness, and incredulity they must have been feeling. In fact almost all of us, regardless of race, colour, beliefs or religion are no doubt feeling similarly.


Hopefully one week on, if anything remotely positive is to find it’s way into the light after the unspeakable, it is that we do not tolerate hateful rhetoric, and that we do not confuse ‘free’ speech with ‘hate’ speech. Somehow, I don’t think there would be too many people left willing to defend the right of extremists to speak on university campuses after the events of a week ago. And those that do are obviously hopelessly biased.


It’s completely superfluous it wasn’t a born and bred New Zealander who was responsible for the Christchurch terrorist massacre. Because no matter what, that bitter, bitter pill of what happened at Christchurch on March 15, 2019 will never get any easier to digest. And just now it feels as though the perpetrator has ruined our country for time immemorial.


The very unfortunate truth is that for years we brushed off violent, hardline supremacist rhetoric as the work of blowhard extremists. They were basically good for a laugh. As security expert Paul Buchanan stated in the aftermath, all along Government Intelligence were looking the wrong way. And so were we, the public. Surely there’s no doubt about that.


That being said, I don’t know if I completely go along with some column writers who have strongly asserted the New Zealand public are also rather responsible for what happened in Christchurch (then again, I may have no right to even write that- perhaps that should only be for those of the Muslim faith to comment upon). In society there are always a proportion of idiots and ignoramuses who scornfully denigrate others and their beliefs without actually knowing the life of a single different individual. Such people though are so painfully blinkered that they are going to bad mouth anyone who bears an even slight difference to themselves. Most sane and rational people are not like this.


It’s also entirely true that as globalisation and social media usage has increased so rapidly over the past decade, there is a greater preponderance of xenophobes in our midst. It certainly hasn’t helped the causes of tolerance and understanding, but it wasn’t much a part of the reason for why a white supremacist lunatic committed genocide.


I totally deplore xenophobia in any way, shape or form. Put it this way, it is beyond weird that people choose to demonise others who come here for the promise of a better life for themselves and their children; people who almost without fail try to ‘muck in’ with the quintessentially Kiwi way of living to do their best to gain our acceptance. And yet there are some who give these new arrivals a hard time because their beliefs and appearance don’t fall into line with Anglo-Saxonism. That is so warped and downright racist it isn’t funny.


But these ‘nasties’ are only bit-part extras in a massively bad production. Far more pertinent to look at one of the directors of the rhetoric- the Deputy PM, who it’s way too strong to say that he has blood on his hands, but is for my money, is just as, if not more culpable than those xenophobes you might have living down the street. For they are ignorant, irrationally fearful and don’t know any better, but he should. In fact if we are talking about blood on hands, then there is the apparent apathy and hopeless filters of heavyweights like Facebook and Twitter.


On the other hand, there’s no way the casual racists in society should be absolved. The level and very type of their ignorance borders on being a kind of synonym for hate. Even more so when it takes the form of a social media post. That very outlet ups the ante considerably. We should fight tooth and nail for reform in social media hate speech policy to go alongside the new gun proposals. Now we have just learnt that advertisers are on board with pre-empting change on social media rhetoric. A very good start.


Without wanting to dwell for more than a line or two on the cowardly scumbag who carried out the unspeakable crime, bastard extremists like this carry out such acts because of their own warped misinterpretation of history. They frequently have a history of self-loathing, low self-esteem and worth and quite possibly the simmering legacy of some horrible event from their childhood. They might commit their crimes to ‘achieve’ something in their ruined nothingness of an existence. There is enough evidence of the self-loathing factor with crimes like this that can be found within any decent library or in online journals and academic articles.


Most heartbreaking by far is the target of the crime- the Muslim brother and sisterhood. When a cleric from Wellington dissolved into tears on the news coverage and pleaded that ‘We are Kiwis, too’, I couldn’t take it anymore and cried awful tears with him. And I kept going- for a good while. Because that sentence more than any other hit hardest of all. How, just how could anyone have done this to those peace-loving people who love this country and were so proud to call it home?


I recall the gentle nature and heart-warming smiles of the Muslim students I have taught in my career as an English as a second language teacher and tutor: Ali, a former Saudi police detective- one of the hardest cases I’ve ever met anywhere and always poking fun at himself about his hair transplant. And Eman- a young Saudi woman I helped with an assignment a couple of months back. So polite and so intelligent. I could study for a thousand years and never come close to emulating her.


And then I stop and think that the only people who should really be writing anything on all of the above should be that brother and sisterhood that have been scarred for life by our nation. And for that, I am overcome and ashamed.