Just what is our Kiwi way of life now?
The Kiwi way of life: What does it mean now in the bloody wake of the Christchurch terror attack? Across the country, people have been shocked by the news, images and actions around New Zealand’s worst mass shooting.
Has this violence shaken New Zealanders to the core? Has it shaken our belief that this little piece of paradise at the bottom of the world is immune to terror? What if our beliefs were not quite right in the first place?
Faisal Al-Asaad came to New Zealand from Iraq with his family when he was 8. Twenty-one years later, he’s studied our culture, specialising in social theory of race and colonialism.
He has a joke – it’s just not very funny. It’s ironic, he says. ‘‘The joke is, we’d be in a mosque and say someone can just so easily walk in here and start shooting.
‘‘That’s always been there, that idea, that ironic joke laced with a lot of anxiety and fear. It really is so easy, we saw that.’’
Al-Asaad says there has always been a potential threat towards his community in New Zealand, it’s just that the authorities and public didn’t notice it – or chose to ignore it.
Muslim community leaders and advocates have spent years trying to highlight the harassment and intimidation they face, he says.
In 2017, he was part of a research group that travelled to different mosques in the country, consulting Muslims about their experiences of racial profiling.
He says those they spoke to tended to have trouble identifying as Kiwis or New Zealanders. ‘‘We don’t feel entirely at home. People often cling to this belief that we all do belong here. But there is definitely recognition that not all of us are allowed to feel completely safe in our own home.’’
He believes Muslims in Western nations, including here, have lived in a mild state of anxiety since 9/11. It fluctuates depending on different events in the world or within their own backyard.
The massacre has left his community feeling extremely alienated and fearful.
But they can also feel equally motivated to fight for their home and for their rights. ‘‘I just feel desperate about the situation, the plight of the families and communities. I feel desperate to do something that might offer a measure of accountability and justice beyond simply seeing the perpetrator charged.
‘‘No community should have to suffer these atrocities and violences disproportionately.
‘‘When people say this is an attack on the New Zealand way of life it comes from a place of structured misapprehension and privilege,’’ says Al-Asaad. ‘‘For Muslim communities, people are scared and angry because this kind of thing we’ve been warning against for a long time and repeatedly. We’ve been trying to make people aware, government agencies, [that] these threats are very real.’’
We need to address violence in its many forms, he says, including colonisation, Islamophobia, racism, gender bias, family violence and hate towards the rainbow community so others don’t think they can commit violence.
‘‘You can’t help but wonder if this country was really honest about its history and identity, if it wasn’t so blatantly Europeanist, white and colonial in its mindset and culture, would people like him feel confident enough to plan and carry out attacks like this with such impunity? The answer is probably no.’’
In the research Al-Asaad conducted he found that although Muslim people feel excluded and alienated, they also felt hopeful New Zealand is and can be their home and they can belong here.
‘‘I hope . . . this means people will take a harder look at our country, history and way of life and culture. Ask themselves some really hard questions, hold themselves and each other to account for the normalisation of all forms of different violence.
‘‘People don’t have to lose their loved ones for others to wake up.’’