Muslims right to feel let down

The 792 pages of the long-awaited report by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques on March 15, 2019, will take time to digest. However, some details from the initial coverage of the report, which was released on Tuesday afternoon, revealed alarming elements in a story of how an Australian man was radicalised to commit an atrocity in New Zealand.

The interview with the terrorist himself has been permanently suppressed for fear that it may inspire others and provide a blueprint. But an account of his final months, largely spent in isolation in Dunedin, makes for chilling reading.

Less than three months before the terrorist travelled north to Christchurch, where he killed 51 people in two places of worship, he was visited by his mother and her new partner. During a short, tense holiday, the terrorist told her he intended to give up his flat and move to Ukraine. After an online search revealed an active network of white supremacy groups in Ukraine, his mother pleaded with the terrorist to return home to Australia. But he did not respond.

It is one of several ‘‘what if?’’ moments. It is natural to scan the mammoth document for the answers to two questions that preoccupied us after March 15: could he have been stopped, and is anyone to blame for letting this happen?

The conclusion of the royal commission is that he could only have been stopped by chance. This is far from comforting. The signs that can form a picture in hindsight would have been ‘‘fragmentary’’ in advance, as no single aspect could have alerted public sector agencies to an impending terrorist attack.

Yet the police have apologised for obviously inadequate scrutiny of the terrorist when he was granted a firearms licence. This includes the acceptance of a ‘‘gaming friend’’ and that friend’s parent as character references. The inquiry claims that denying the terrorist a gun licence may have only delayed his attack, but this is speculative. It is unquestionably one of the most important forks in the road towards March 15.

The mother’s concern was another red flag. Yet the terrorist appeared to be skilled at covering his tracks as he prepared for the attack. Unlike terrorists of old, he did not belong to a group or attend meetings that could be infiltrated.

He was also helped by the fact that he was hiding in plain sight.

After September 11, 2001, the West’s intelligence serviceswere focused on the threat of radical Islamic terrorism. This threat has proved to be devastatingly real, although not in New Zealand. The focus also means that when militant white supremacy began to emerge as a threat more than a decade later, it was overlooked by agencies, the media and the public.

A lone white man from another country visiting a shooting range did not seem overly suspicious in New Zealand. But a brown-skinned man from a country with a predominantly Muslim population would probably have rung alarm bells.

In short, we were looking the wrong way. The report has revealed that there were no full-time analysts in our security agencies focused solely on the growing global problem of right-wing extremism, and that agencies were not tasked directly with monitoring it.

By contrast, between 30 and 40 Muslims had been on a terror watchlist. The report confirms once again that New Zealand’s Muslim community deserves to feel utterly let down.

The conclusion of the royal commission is that he could only have been stopped by chance. This is far from comforting.