Brenton Tarrant’s trial, including the searing testimonies of survivors, families and friends, received superficial coverage in the mainstream media.
Described as a “terrorist”, the ideological convictions which fuelled Tarrant’s atrocities were not considered. At the Nuremburg trials after World War Two, the perpetrators of heinous crimes against humanity were referred to as Nazis, not agents of terror per se. To depict Himmler, Göering and senior functionaries simply as terrorists would have insulted Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
The terror they experienced was inseparable from the governing doctrine of anti-semitic genocide.
This insight is vital. Tarrant’s ideology and mindset closely resembles Nazism, yet daily news coverage displaced this reality.
His manifesto, “The Great Replacement”, claims that the white race is under attack and threatened with extinction. This conviction reflects a common concern of certain European (especially French) fascist groups which shaped Tarrant’s indoctrination: overseas migrants are invading Western heartlands; the general demographics of population growth are swamping white communities; and multiculturalist propaganda is weakening white values and traditions (dating back to Scandinavian mythology and the Crusades).
Of course, not all who share this worldview openly advocate the elimination of enemies (Renaud Camus, the primary intellectual proponent of “Great Replacement Theory” never advocated the incitement of racial violence). Crucially, though, violent expressions of “Great Replacement” thinking derive from Nazi race theory. The only difference is that, today, Islamic rather than Semitic culture is the object of erasure. With this caveat in mind, reflect upon the following observation from Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism
The race theory is German fascism`s theoretical axis. In fascist ideology the economic program of the so-called 25 points figures solely as an expedient intended ‘to improve the Germanic race genetically and to protect it against racial interbreeding’ which, according to the National Socialists, always entails the decline of the ‘higher race’. Indeed, it is their contention that even the decline of a culture is to be traced back to miscegenation. Hence, ‘keeping the blood and the race pure’ is a nation`s noblest task, in the fulfilment of which one must be prepared to make any sacrifice. In Germany and the German-occupied countries, no means were spared in putting this theory into practice in the form of the persecution of the Jews.
The quoted sections within this excerpt derive from Adolf Hitler`s Mein Kampf—still the motherlode of fascist ideology today. The Tarrant trial and its mainstream media coverage was a missed opportunity. Public depiction of Tarrant’s ideology and its lineage would have raised disturbing questions. Can you imagine living in a society where people like Brenton Tarrant are in charge; where genocide of a marginalised ‘other’ is official policy and where the un-persecuted live lives of banal normality and ignorance? The absence of such reflections in the mainstream media reminds us that the dangers of white supremacist ideology were ignored by most journalists, politicians and security intelligence agencies in the years preceding Tarrant’s atrocities. After Anders Behring Breivnik’s bombing and murderous rampage in Norway, July 2011, 4chan and 8chan internet sites were alight with supportive commentary. The same happened after Dylan Roof’s church shooting of Afro-American workshippers in Charleston, June 2015. In New Zealand, violent Islamophobic internet chatter in the months before March 2019 was ignored by authorities, despite protestations from Islamic communities themselves. And, Tarrant’s internet activities and Tiki tour of European fascist enclaves raised no red flags. These oversights are worth remembering now.
A one-off terrorist monster? Think again.
I view him more as a sick and sad kid, who has thrown his life away for a grand illusion as well as taken the lives of so many innocents. This is a warning for parents everywhere to take charge and intervene on behalf of their young people whether they like it or not , to be kind, to monitor and steer them away from radicalism.
A few strong Dads and Mum’s can have an awesome effect. Not in antagonizing them, but listening to them. Counselling them. There are many family’s who are estranged, but we must do our best for our offspring.
I know this is like living in the ideal world,… but it must be attempted. You see your son or daughter going off the rails, you have every right to get involved no holds barred.
Told my son I want this played at my funeral among others.
Simple Man – Lynyrd Skynyrd
https://youtu.be/sMmTkKz60W8?t=3
Beautiful song.
Wild K What you’re describing is an ideal which not all children are fortunate enough to have – starting with two – if any – reasonably well functioning parents.
The majority of NZ’s prisons’ occupants are survivors of state care – a harsh indictment of the patently crippling effect of this upon already disadvantaged kids.
My children’s father died when the youngest had just turned 13 and about to start secondary school.Apart from one bro who kindly shouldered the legal complexities of a complicated will, they had nobody but me.It was hard. I would go to my son’s ‘Meet the teacher’ nights then sit outside in the car and cry. I regard his peer group, fairly macho rugby players who were all drinking by fifth form, as his major formative influence. His closest friend’s father died at the end of that same year. They turned out ok, but the circumstances of my husband’s young death from an horrific condition, has probably impacted permanently upon my children, just as the Australian shooter’s father’s death may have impacted upon him.
The Australian murderer appears to have been friendless, with no social group, no participation in team sports, grew up in a small mono cultural town, then let loose upon the world with a stash of money and stunted brain power.
It has occurred to me, that apart from the horror of solitary confinement, the prison community may be the first community in which this individual has had a place, apart from his faceless group of online extremist sickos.
Our lesson here has to be to speed up addressing all the circumstances which cause our New Zealand children to be disadvantaged and alienated from mainstream society.Do I think our major political parties have the will to do so? Answer: No.
Yeah, I know, that’s why I mentioned the bit about ‘the ideal world’.
But that’s also why I alluded, in a veiled sort of way… modern B.S alienating, divided community’s and society’s…and why I gave the song, with a shout out to rural, family type values which we, – aided by the clown Roger Douglas who hastened up the process,- have left behind.
Because it all starts right there, – strong family’s with a values system that views other human beings as our brothers and sisters and places a value on looking out for our neighbors.
Its that simple.
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