Alison Mau
Why these are the women we should be listening to.
Ihave donated to the fundraising efforts, obsessively watched the news reports late into the night, diarised the vigil dates, mourned for the victims and cursed our country’s naivety in imagining this would never happen here.
Like most New Zealanders I struggle to wrap my head around the events in Christchurch, a city I left on a plane just a few hours before the shooting started. But I am a Pa¯ keha¯ woman with a platform – this column – and today I do not feel I deserve it.
Better today, to hear the voices that do matter. Right now those people, our Muslim New Zealanders, are scared and haunted. Some have begged on social media to be left alone to process their grief.
A couple have very generously agreed to allow me to amplify their thoughts.
Ghazaleh Golbakhsh is an Iranian-born New Zealander, a writer and film-maker, and a Fulbright scholar with her first feature film in development. She told me Friday’s atrocities affected her, as an immigrant, more than she thought they would.
‘‘I felt numb, and when I met up with a friend, we both just started crying. New Zealand has been my home for over 30 years and it’s horrific to find yourself feeling unsafe in your own home.
‘‘Over and over again I kept asking how it could happen in a place like ours, but I realised that the question I should ask is where is this hatred coming from? I don’t even know what to think any more.’’
That feeling – the shattering of illusions of safety – is shared by Lamia Imam, an expat writer and communications manager I’ve followed on social media for years for her sharp brand of political acuity, and her insights into the Muslim faith.
She was at home in Austin, Texas, when she heard the dreadful news that people had been murdered at her home mosque.
She is devastated, and cannot help but see how the experiences of Muslims in her home country have come to mirror those in her adopted one.
‘‘I am terrified to go to a mosque in Texas,’’ she told me. ‘‘I would never be afraid to go to a mosque in New Zealand, until now.’’
Imam is not surprised a racist attack has happened in Christchurch – it’s her home city and she’s aware of racist and extreme rightwing elements there – but she is surprised it was a mass shooting: ‘‘I thought guns were
harder to get in New Zealand.’’
Technically this may be true, but it certainly did not protect those at prayer in Christchurch on Friday. According to early reports the terrorist accused held an ‘‘A’’ licence, which allowed him to legally own the semi-automatic weapons he used. Less than 24 hours later, the prime minister promised gun laws will change.
She would be best to follow Australia’s example and move as fast as possible. I’ve never been much of a fan of John Howard, but his gun law reform – announced within 12 days of Australia’s worst gun massacre in 1996 – appears to have helped keep Australia safe from these kinds of events for the past 20 years.
I hope the prime minister and her Government will resist the inevitable demands for ‘‘debate’’ before they act. The insistence on debate – as if both sides of this argument can possibly carry equal weight – does nothing to keep us safe.
If we do not achieve this change, and fast, we’ll send a very clear message to New Zealanders that we don’t care that they’re hurting, afraid, and that we have within our power the means to stop this happening again.
Lamia Imam said the immigration conversation in this country is similarly blighted; disingenuously giving both sides equal merit.
‘‘The way [politicians and commentators] talk about immigrants taking jobs from Kiwis, looking at immigration as an economic benefit or burden only, rather than people enhancing our country – in that way, New Zealand is no different than the US.
‘‘I am a child of immigrants. I was born in New Zealand and I find the language extremely dehumanising. I feel unwanted and excluded always.’’
I’m ashamed that any New Zealander feels that way – and perhaps there’s a clue there for something we can all do post-Christchurch. Do not accept that hate speech is in fact merely ‘‘free speech’’. Learn the difference between real ‘‘free speech’’ and the kind of rhetoric that puts entire groups of people on the outer.
We’ve all seen now what hate can do. We must accept now, that it has a foothold here in the ‘‘safe’’ little country we love.
Let’s not allow that to hurt a single person more.
‘‘I am terrified to go to a mosque in Texas. I would never be afraid to go to a mosque in New Zealand, until now.’’ – Lamia Imam