The readiness to withhold empathy from those whose values the radical extremist abhors has always been the first step on the staircase that leads to terrorist atrocity. The second is the radical’s hate and rage when those deemed to hold abhorrent values refuse to be silent.
THE APPALLING CONDUCT of the Waikato DHB raises broader questions about the robustness of New Zealand’s liberal democracy. Most particularly, it challenges the whole notion that the administrators of New Zealand society remain accountable to the people they administrate
The suspicion arises that in 2014-2015, in some unspecified, possibly unlawful, and highly secretive way, the country’s national security apparatus was working hand-in-glove with senior elements within the police to silence and punish a couple of outspoken critics of the National-led 2008-2017 Coalition Government.
While they continue to ride forth, pausing in their wild career, to salute with uplifted arms, and uplifted swords, “The Crusaders” cheering fans, deep racial memories, born of the bloody excesses of Pakeha New Zealanders’ ancestors, will stir and rise to the surface. The past has a dangerous way of intruding upon the present.
Since Friday, 15 March, the Left has been dazzled by Jacinda’s light. So much so, that it has failed to understand that, far from defeating the Right’s darkness, the Prime Minister’s recent illuminations have only exposed the terrifying dimensions of its realm. Light speaks only to light. Political dark matter has always been, and always will be, profoundly deaf to everything except the soundless screaming energy of its black and inexhaustible rage.
SO, WHAT DOES NZ First do now? The Goddess of History hasn’t just foot-tripped Winston Peters and his party, she’s hurled them bodily into a very deep hole. The Christchurch Mosque Shootings have disabled just about all of the “hot-button” election issues upon which New Zealand’s right-wing populist party has depended since its inception. Robbed of its ability to rouse conservative voters against “Maori Separatism”, the “Asian Invasion”, and “Islamic Extremism”; where does NZ First go? How does a right-wing populist party do populism without right-wing slogans?
Was it at all plausible that the Christchurch Shooter acted entirely alone? Is it possible that such a man could hide in plain sight – drawing absolutely no attention to himself for more than two years? How was he able to afford the extensive foreign travel he is known to have undertaken? The guy had no job – so who paid his rent? Could someone without extensive training in terrorist techniques have planned and executed so large and lethal an operation? If not, then who trained him and guided him under the authorities’ radar? Were the 15/3 attacks really a “lone-wolf” operation – or did the Christchurch Shooter have help?
MARAMA DAVIDSON and Golriz Ghahraman would be well advised to take a break and read a little history. Not the history of colonial New Zealand: they seem very well-acquainted with that dismal narrative. No, the history they should familiarise themselves with, is the history of the Alliance in the weeks and months that followed the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
The proposition being advanced by Davidson, Ghahraman, and many others on the left, is that terrorist acts are the by-products of societies steeped in racism and xenophobia: that they constitute the merely the awful apex of a much larger pyramid of prejudice. By discouraging the expression of the milder prejudices embedded at the base of this grim pyramid, they argue, their transmission upwards to damaged individuals like the Christchurch shooter can be interrupted, and lives saved.
Part of the answer, the most important part, we have already seen. In the floral tributes outside the nation’s mosques. In the images of the imam and the rabbi embracing each other. In the Pasifika voices raised in a hymn of heart-breaking poignance. In the Maori and Pakeha faces wet with tears, yet set in grim defiance. In the passionate cry of the massacre survivor: “This is not New Zealand!” In the nearly $5 million already raised to support the victims’ families. The answer already given by the people of New Zealand, united in grief, is unequivocal: When confronted with such reckless hate, the only possible answer is aroha – love.
The wrong answer; the answer the terrorist is always hoping the strategic targets of his rage will give; is to meet recklessness with recklessness; hate with hate.