The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the white supremacist atrocity has been announced and the questions that are being asked are the right ones, and they will be hard ones.
Beyond the how, what, where and who are the most important why…
• What relevant state sector agencies knew about him and his activities before this attack; what actions, if any, they took in light of that knowledge; and whether there were any additional measures the agencies could have taken to prevent the attack
• Whether there were any impediments to relevant state sector agencies gathering or sharing information relevant to the attack, or acting upon such information, including legislative impediments
• Whether there was any inappropriate concentration or priority setting of counter-terrorism resources by relevant state sector agencies prior to the attack.
…we know the Police were contacted directly about him, we know the Muslim Community was complaining about growing violence, we know the intelligence agencies were falsely focused on Muslims and activists.
The Intelligence Agencies will cry out for more funding and more powers, that should be resisted, they have the money and the powers right now, they’ve had them focused on the wrong threats.
This Inquiry may well be the most important examination of domestic intelligence ever conducted and it will be overseen by a Government who have clearly shown they will take direct action for change.
The White Supremacist Ideology encompasses our society with western values of expansionism, exceptionalism, aggression. White values are everywhere in our society it even claims to speak for or on behalf of people of color. Just read Facebook comments especially concerning any issue to do with Maori. White supremacy is alive and well in Aotearoa it has always been since the 1850s when European immigrant numbers were on par with the Indigenous people.
Stephen: “White supremacy is alive and well in Aotearoa it has always been since the 1850s….”
This is an overstatement.
Since the arrival of the first European migrants in NZ, there has been intermarriage, such that now there are few (possibly no) Maori family trees without European ancestors. And vice versa, for the family trees of the descendants of the first European settlers. This is especially true in the far south of the country, where the European sealers and whalers first settled.
These aren’t the actions of people with white supremacist sentiments.
You are conflating intermarriage with white supremacy?! The two are not connected. In fact, it could be demonstrated that they are diametrically opposed.
Frank: “In fact, it could be demonstrated that they are diametrically opposed.”
Which is what I just said. People with white supremacist sentiments don’t marry brown people. Although of course such men aren’t above having sex with non-whites, as we saw in the slave-owning southern states of the US. And in apartheid South Africa as well.
It’s instructive to note that there has relatively little intermarriage between blacks and whites in the US. I remember reading stats on that phenomenon somewhere in the literature when I was in the academic system.
Intermarriage there isn’t unknown, but it’s rarer than it has been here. Whether that’s due to a white supremacist cultural meme, I couldn’t say. Though in the south, it may well be an artefact of that area’s history of slave-owning.
Ok, thanks for the clarification on that, D’esterre.
You don’t get it D and you’re coming from a white perspective and haven’t had to deal with Systemic and Institutional racism.
The conspiracy of racism is hardly invisible to people of colour.
Privilege is built into the fabrics and functions of society, allowing white people as a whole to grow up and live with freedoms they do not have to recognize.
Good work ‘agent Bradley’.
The intelligence industry will be very uncomfortable at being cross examined like this.
Good to see the intelligence under the spotlight as they were getting to comfortable gate-crashing ‘peaceful folks like you, Nicky Hagar and several other peace loving folks.
I can already write their report now, I think the Commission will come to conclusions that can be drawn already. The remainder will be what the Police will present at the trial, as evidence.
This is another grandiose exercise, and the outcome will be somewhat predictable.
But it sounds and looks good.
Any chance of an enquiry into what we might possibly do in the nearish future about that existential threat that’s hanging around. That one referred to as our nuclear-free moment.
Shaw’s latest utterings indicate that NZ’s GHG emissions will continue to rise into the mid-2030s. Maybe a little enquiry into whether or not that’s actually going to help us avert the major impacts might be sensible?
This situation from the fallout of the massacre at the mosques is a national disgrace !!!
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018690264/it-s-very-hard-to-ask-for-the-money-families-of-mosque-victims-struggling
What evidence do you have that Tarrant is a “White Supremacist”?
Andy,
He referenced the “Great Replacement” theory that White Supremacists believe and promote, he donated money to two European White Identitarian groups that espouse White Supremacist ideology, and he deliberately targeted Muslims who are considered to be the primary threat to White European people’s culture and existence.
Mark Stein and Douglas Murray aren’t “White Supremacists” as far as I know, but they both claim that Europe will become Islamic at some point this century. This is based on demographics alone, not some “conspiracy”
Which is why I gave other examples, such as donating to actual White Supremacist groups. In the case of the individual accused of the Christchurch terror attack, it’s the total package that marks him as such.
So I don’t think Mark Stein and Douglas Murray, or Bruce Bawer as another example, are White Supremacists. I do think the demographics claim is wrong however.
Dear Martyn.
You couldn’t be more Wrong.
This enquiry will NOT achieve the truth of this terror event by virtue of the FACT that the two hardest questions are not even in its remit!
What do you think the two hardest questions are?
“….we know the intelligence agencies were falsely focused on Muslims…..”
Er….no, actually. Several years ago, at the height of ISIS’ depredations in the ME, along with extremist Muslim attacks in Europe and elsewhere, intelligence agencies here would have been derelict in their duty not to have been keeping an eye out for evidence of extremism having taken root in this country. And they’d ignore this issue at our peril right now; after grief comes anger and the risks of retaliation. I don’t doubt that they’re aware of this.
We all need to remember: for all that he acquired his weapons in NZ, the fellow who shot up the mosques is Australian, and appears thus far to have had no connections to such white supremacist groups as may exist in NZ.
While – as those of us who’ve lived in ChCh in the past can attest – there has for many years been an undercurrent of white supremacy in that city, it has been largely subterranean in recent times. Some commentators assert that the earthquakes were the death knell of the ChCh movement, such as it was at the time. I’m sure that the intel agencies would be aware of that as well.
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