Why we must call him a white supremacy terrorist and what happens next?

I read the White Supremacist Terrorist’s manifesto when it was first published online in the early hours post the obscene violence he unleashed on the people and Muslims of Christchurch and New Zealand.

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he is a white supremacist with all the warped logic and mutated historic arguments to back that intellectual malfeasance up.

We can not amputate this philosophical dimension of the Terrorist’s actions, by doing so we rob ourselves collectively of the obligation and responsibility to truly repudiate that twisted hateful logic, and that is a feature that is desperately needed here because it makes it clear to those young white alienated males who are susceptible to this hate virus how utterly corrupt the concept of white supremacy truly is.

So that’s why I always refer to him as a White Supremacist Terrorist.

Because that’s what he is.

So what now?

This terrible wound and what it revealed about ourselves demands reflection and action. These are 3 things off the top of my head.

1 – I think those Muslim voices who were ignored for so long regarding street intimidation and abuse towards Muslims in public must be forefront of any new Policing Community tactics and if needed, a specific focus on proactively catching this type of violence. Muslims must feel free to be safe in public or else we are failing not them, but basic society as well. This safety in public message is valid for everyone.

2 – The screws have to go on our Intelligence apparatus. They were too busy spying on Muslims, Journalists, Māori, Environmentalists, Greenpeace and MANA to notice a radicalised white supremacist was plotting an atrocity for 2 years on NZ soil, after crossing the border numerous times and after having multiple complaints made about his mental fitness to hold a firearms licence. I mean, if the Intelligence apparatus was actually doing its job, they would have seen this threat profile well before he could have done any harm.

We were terribly let down by the people who are supposed to see the threats coming, not just react to them.

3 – I think there needs to be a hard pause on the push to redefine hate speech to include religion. The freedom of speech fight is dreadfully fraught and easily knocked over, especially in the age of subjective social media rage. However, I certainly believe corporate social media have an obligation not to promote harm and must be held accountable to what they are generating. Moving the emphasis off the individuals right to expression from the individual and making it a corporate media’s responsibility protects the individuals right to free speech while punishing the network that promotes hateful speech.

Progress will be made slowly as the enormity of what was done still reverberates, but the need to learn from this demands our attention.

I hope the sentence this week gave some peace to those who suffered and it’s anniversary must bring us back to this debate annually to mark the progress of how far we’ve come.

 

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