Shameful attack shows our streets aren’t safe

New Zealand is not safe. We cannot claim to be safe. We cannot even claim to be decent, not when people are attacked on our streets for being gay. Not until we do more to stop the chauvinist psychopaths who roam these streets, attacking innocent people because of their race, gender, religion or sexuality. Everyone deserves, at the very least, to be safe. We have failed.

At the height of Pride Month in Auckland last weekend, journalist Aziz Al-Sa’afin and his friend were attacked. Police say they are investigating two men, who allegedly bashed, bruised and battered Aziz and his friend on Karangahape Rd.

As they did it, he remembers them shouting homophobic slurs. ‘‘Homos, you’re going to hell,’’ they reportedly said.

Momentarily blinded by the assault, the reporter says he feared for his life. He escaped by splitting up with his friend as they scrambled in different directions.

His friend was on the floor in the foetal position, just metres away from a string of rainbow flags along Ponsonby Rd. He was being ‘‘pulverised’’.

‘‘Never in my wildest nightmares did I think I would be subject to a ‘gay bashing’ in New Zealand, during Pride Week,’’ Aziz wrote in a Newshub column.

The fact that the term ‘‘gay bashing’’ even exists is a sad indictment in itself. We should be calling such an attack what it is: a hate crime.

We know that New Zealand law is woefully weak when it comes to punishing these lowlifes who take it upon themselves to attack others because of their identities.

We don’t even know how bad the problem of hate crime is. The Human Rights Commission warned Justice Minister Andrew Little about New Zealand’s ‘‘insufficient’’ response to hate crime.

It said police were not doing enough. It raised a red flag about the absence of records, keeping track of hate crimes committed in this country.

During the National government, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said he was concerned by the rise in hate crime. But how would he know how many hate crimes were being committed? There is no central record of crimes committed on the basis of race, sexuality, religion or disability.

Bush said he was interested in seeing specific laws passed to target hate crime. It’s an idea worth considering; people who are attacking strangers at random because they look or sound different are dangerous. They are triggered at a whim to commit heinous crime, and injure others. They’re among the worst of the worst.

But former police minister Paula Bennett said there was no need for hate laws, or to do anything much, as New Zealanders are pretty tolerant folk. That’s a nice thought, Paula, but it’s not true. I too thought New Zealand was a safe place. Look at the rainbow flags flying high across Auckland this week, and you could be easily lulled into a sense that we are a cohesive group. The multicultural beauty that was the Big Gay Out and Pride March at the weekend shone a light on the best of New Zealand.

Then, in the shadowy corners of our society, where people are beaten for being gay just steps away from a building covered in rainbow flags, it’s obvious we’ve still got a long way to go.

Just 33 years ago, it was illegal for gay men to have consensual sex. Just 15 years ago, a same-sex couple could not have their relationship legally recognised. And in 2013, New Zealand made it legal for same-sex couples to marry. We look back at moments like the passing of the Marriage Equality Bill, and talk like we’re leading the world. We speak of those glamorous occasions as if we’re solving world peace.

But when we get to the nitty-gritty, when we’re faced with questions such as ‘‘Should the law do more to protect minorities from hate crimes?’’, we say ‘‘No’’. We say, ‘‘Don’t be so negative.’’ We say, ‘‘Kiwis are good, tolerant, kind people.’’ We say, ‘‘Attacks like that don’t happen here.’’ But they do. We’re not so tolerant, after all. Off the top of my head, I know at least three friends who have been attacked for being gay. Ma¯ ori, Pacific and Muslim friends have spoken about verbal racist abuse from strangers.

What are we doing for them, for the people who can’t walk down the street without fear of being attacked?

At the Pride March the day before Aziz and his friend were attacked, there was a pink sign that read: ‘‘An injury to one is an injury to all.’’

They are right. We cannot go on pretending everything is fine, patting ourselves on the back while people are attacked for being themselves. We cannot rest until everyone is safe to walk down the street.