A hate war we need to win

The appalling terror attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, are, of course, first and foremost a human tragedy. Forty-nine people are known to be dead at press time, nearly as many are injured, many critically. Disgustingly, the attackers streamed their murderous acts live to the internet via social media. Innocent Muslim men, women and children, peacefully practising their faith in their houses of worship when the attacks began, are not just victims. Their deaths were made a spectacle, their mosque was turned into a theatre for horror.

The attack is all the more shocking for its location. New Zealand is a typically safe country, welcoming to newcomers and proud of its liberty. New Zealanders are more than our allies, they are our democratic kin, our fellows in freedom. Their pain could easily be our own. That’s why we feel it, too, as they would for us.

Canada has known this pain. The New Zealand attack, carried about by what early reports suggest was an Islamophobic white nationalist, is not just a largerscale but similar attack to the massacre in a Quebec City mosque in 2017, but it seems to have been directly inspired by it. It is also evoc- ative of the anti-Semitic massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last year.

It is becoming a vile trend. Yet we must expect more such attacks. While much of the public still seems convinced that religiously fundamentalist terrorism or mentally unstable lone crazies are the only major public safety threats to the West, our intelligence and police agencies are under no such illusions. Extreme right-wing nationalism, often infused with white supremacy, is on the rise, and has been flagged by Canadian authorities as a growing threat. Just months ago, the RCMP told the Toronto Star that while right-wing extremists were generally more a matter of criminal interest than of national security, they were becoming observably emboldened. The same is generally true across the Western world.

Though there will always be tragic exceptions, the West has mostly effectively confronted and helped minimize the threat posed by the reactionary Islamist terrorists of al- Qaida and ISIL. There’s no reason we can’t be as successful against the reactionary threat emerging from the extreme right. It’s time for the public to realize that that fight is already joined. It’s one we need to win.