On March 15th, 2019 at the Al Noor Mosque in Charleston, New Zealand 50 victims were killed by white supremacist gunmen. The shooting sent shock waves throughout the world but news reporter Waleed Ali speaks out against the blanketed silence. He gave a powerful reflection on-air describing the accuracy through which the attack was administered. A mosque is a sacred place, it is a place of peace and a place of self-reflection, the people in the mosque in the moments before the attack were in their most vulnerable positions. The attackers, as Waleed points out, knew that and they chose to attack during those moments. New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has since then been bolstered for staging a revolution by striking to action and labelling the attack a terrorist one even though numerous politicians in New Zealand and around the world were hesitant because of the attacker's white ethnicity. She set the stage of the way western states and their leaders should respond to terrorist attacks.
Race, ethnicity, religion, identity, and gender are all terms called into action when such events are described in popular media. In recent years right-winged extremist movements have gained momentum and a lot of this criticism and hatred is pointed towards anti-immigration and Islamophobic violence. The attacks in New Zealand were addressed by politicians and media in relation to anti-immigration agenda’s, the hatred is triggered by growing solidarity towards anti-immigration policies worldwide. The United State’s has seen an upsurge in political violence, while only a few of these incidents make international news. Governments have labelled such groups as anti-government or militant groups but the language used by media and government officials in Western countries parallels the ideas of these so-called militants and anti-government groups. Waleed Ali points out in the rhetoric published in the attacker's white supremacist manifesto and the Australian politician's statements are the same. Australian Senator Fraser Anning responded after the attack saying that the shootings should be blamed on Muslim immigration to New Zealand, quoting the Bible passage “that those who live by the sword will die by the sword” finally adding that those who were killed were not blameless”. Waleed also mentioned Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s 2011 report writing that “[he] advocated the party capitalize on electorate fears of Muslim immigration, Muslims in Australia and Muslim Migrants inability to integrate”.
People shouldn’t be made into political tools for the creation of governance and nation. These events should make you question what kind of leaders the world has elected and how did they come into power? Privilege and power are still centres of oppression and violence for all citizens non-white, non-binary sex, females, poor or middle class, non-Christian.
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Keywords: Colonialism, Imperialism, Islamaphobia, terrorism, white-right extremism, militancy, globalization, anti-immigration
Author: Savita Bhabhi
This blog entry is extremely critical especially as Islamophobia is rising globally. The New Zealand attacks were a horrific and stark reminder of the xenophobic and anti-immigration narratives present around the world. This blog post did a great job of addressing how race, ethnicity, religion and gender are all present during the media coverage of such events. In similar situations, politicians and news reporters are hesitant to label white shooters as terrorists. This is due to the racist connotations associated with the term ‘terrorist’ which has resulted in the term being reserved primarily for brown people and/or Muslims. However, Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand Prime Minister showed allyship and compassion by openly labelling the shooter a terrorist. Although it is…