Today, Christchurch, a city all too familiar with heartbreak, suffered something New Zealand hoped we would never see on our own soil: a terrorist attack.
Disbelief. Horror. Anger. Sorrow. Rage. A questioning of how this could be real. We are feeling all these and so much more.
As the numbers start to set in, the initial shock fades and other emotions take hold. How do we react to this?
We will want justice, we will want to know who could, who would, do this – here. How? Why?
But, don't give them that. Don't even give thought to those who committed these acts. Lock them up, leave them there, forget them. They have shown they deserve nothing from us. They are not even worth our rage.
And we will feel rage. Right now, I feel a deep, vehement burn. This is not right. We know this is wrong, that it shouldn't be so, that it shouldn't happen.
"Be angry, but do not sin."
Anger is an expression of deeper emotions. Fear. Sorrow. That nameless thing that grapples with failing to understand. Feel it – it's ok. It's normal.
Then turn and do exactly what these sub-human individuals hate: show love to those hurt today. Show that New Zealand, Aotearoa – our home – is a place of love, a place of acceptance, and a place of safety. Reach out to our Muslim brothers and sisters, who have lost so much today, and accept them as our own.
Because they are our own. They are part of us. Aotearoa is a land of immigrants – every person here is descended from somewhere else. Yet all of us have a tie to the land here. One day, one year, one generation, or the lost distant past – our length of time here doesn't separate us. Our time here unites us.
Just because people who lost loved ones today look different, sound different, think different, act different, and believe different things is no reason for us to think them separate from us. Re-read that last line: every one of those differences is true whether you talk of the strangest stranger or your closest friend and relative. No other person is exactly the same as you. And this makes us stronger. Our variety brings richness.
We are all one race: the human race. Let us never forget that. There is more we are alike than we are unlike.
In this time of upset, let us show that we as the Nation of New Zealand are a people of welcome, a people of love, a people of a strength who gives, not takes.
Aroha. Kaha. Mana.
Christchurch, you have shown before who you are in crisis: unity, courage, generosity, love in action. Your Muslim brothers and sisters need that of you again today, and in the days to come.
We will not surrender to fear. Fear of others, fear of the unknown, fear of the different. Those are not what define us, only what hunt us.
Because we are not so different to those who committed such acts today, either – we all fear, we have all treated others as less than human. When we let ourselves drop other humans into debasing stereotypes, we let those kinds of beliefs grow in our midst. Today was a failing of all of us.
Hate has no place here. Racism has no place here.
I found myself thinking today on whether I would have felt different it this had been a terrorist attack of Muslims against others, rather than someone from the same ancestors as my own against Muslims. And yes, I would have felt different: Islam taken to a destructive extreme is horrifying, but lovely, moderate Muslims exist. White supremacy (if that indeed was the motivation – I don't care to know) is pure toxic evil.
And I say that as a white, hetero, cis-gendered, middle-age, professional male.
No people group is better than any other. No people group, especially by birth alone, deserves better than another.
And no person, ever, is justified in racial, ideological killing.
I was saddened by hearing that, according to one intelligence expert, the South Island has more extreme Right-wing groups than the North Island. But with my home here, I can see why. In the South Island, people are more likely to make racial jokes, more likely to freely express opinions that others – Muslims in particular – are somehow inferior. I heard such within the last week. Does this make everyone who talks that way allies to today's killers? No, but it helps those like the killers feel justified and supported. If you treat any group as less than human, it is you who are inhuman, not them.
Give nothing to racism. It seems we didn't listen.
Let's start: to listen is to learn. To listen is to show respect.
As for me, my heart is open to hear – the sorrow, the heartache, and the grief of our Muslim family. It will help me to see them as human. Help me to see them as family. Hopefully, help them to see us as family, too.
