Remember the lessons, forget the gunman

Two very different silences are to be experienced throughout New Zealand. One is the brief but profound two minutes to occur on Friday, during which the nation will take pause, take thought, and unite in unspoken love, loss and shared resolve.

So it will be a silence in which much is present.

The other is the sort that signifies an absence. An empty, hollow silence.

A vacancy to replace the name of the Christchurch shooter.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won’t say it. Speak the names of those who were lost, she says, but we will give him nothing, not even his name.

Many others will follow suit and for our part, The Southland Times can live with that. There may be times when for clarity’s sake it’s necessary for us to publish it. There won’t be many.

Descriptions – and one or two spring readily to mind – will generally suffice.

You could call it symbolic, which it is, or silly, which it isn’t.

We’re certainly not pretending that if we ignore people they’ll go away. But there’s much about this man that’s worth disregarding.

Remember the biblical statements about how to recognise false prophets who lie to us? They will be known by their fruit. Or, as other translations put it, known by their works. Their deeds.

The Christchurch shooter is not simply recognised by his deeds. He’s defined by them. And not as he would hope.

These are deeds so emphatically rejected by New Zealanders that, as an act of collective will, we’re fully entitled to diminish his very identity. At least in our own consciousness.

Not because his name is potent and some spurious glamour attaches to it – he’s not Voldemort.

And not because this is some Orwellian attempt to falsely recast history.

His name remains on public record. Something capable of being looked up, should it be necessary.

Otherwise it can safely be left behind as we move on, purposefully.

We have serious matters to address following the shooting. This clown, himself, is not really one of them.

Certainly, we need to identify and confront the sort of thinking that so completely soured him.

We need to address the methodology and disable, as much as we can, the capacities was able to call on to act upon this perverted world view.

Otherwise, in his actions he has separated himself from humanity and to some extent humanity can readily reciprocate.

We do need to remember, even if it brings us little satisfaction, that his own human rights remain inalienable – it’s a rule for any society that aspires to be civilised.

But his identity? For the most part it’s something he can keep to himself.

It has become of scant interest to us.

We have better things to commit to our memory.

It’s something he’s free to take personally.

We’re certainly not pretending that if we ignore people they’ll go away. But there’s much about this man that’s worth disregarding.