CHAMPION FOR HOPE
Aliya Danzeisen from the Islamic Women’s Council of NZ is lending sympathy, support and advocacy to a community still facing the ongoing pain of the Christchurch terrorist attacks of 2019.
Aliya Danzeisen from the Islamic Women’s Council of NZ is lending sympathy and support for a community badly affected by the Christchurch attacks.
In Islam we have a teaching,” says Aliya Danzeisen. “If you have a strength and someone asks you to help them, then you’re obligated to do so if you can.” As the National Coordinator for the
Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ), Danzeisen has been a key advocate for the Muslim community, both before and after the terrorist attacks on Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre on 15 March 2019.
Danzeisen grew up on a farm in the United States. From a young age, she was interested in social justice and went on to study teaching and human rights before working as a lawyer at a large law firm in Miami. Deciding to leave her law career, she moved to New Zealand and returned to teaching at a high school in Hamilton. “I came back to teaching because I thought I could make more of a difference to society.”
Nestling herself into the Muslim community, she soon began working with the government to support Muslim women settling into New Zealand. This became the jumping off point for the Women’s Organisation of the Waikato Muslim Association (WOWMA), and Danzeisen led the youth programme. “We made the decision to make female youth a priority, because if you develop them and make them feel comfortable and resilient, then you’ll have families for future generations that are comfortable and resilient.” The success of WOWMA led her to become more involved in national issues relating to Muslim women in New Zealand. For 10 years now, she has been advocating on behalf of Muslim women.
Long before the Christchurch terrorist attacks, Danzeisen was seeing a rise in hate towards the Muslim community. “In 2014, we started seeing an increase in Islamophobia, which became quite extensive over the years,” she says. Danzeisen wasn’t born a Muslim, and having come to her faith later in life, has experienced the different way she is treated by people after donning a headscarf. “There was a difference with how the average person interacted with me. A lot of people weren’t willing to engage and have a dialogue with me, or even smile. People would pull their kids away around me.”
Muslim women are often the ones to bear the brunt of Islamophobia because their headscarves make them identifiable. Danzeisen has seen this play out in the young women in New Zealand.
“The youth had really high levels of skills. Recruiters were looking at them saying ‘This person should be employed’, and you know what, they couldn’t even get an interview,” she says. Of the 350 female Muslim youth in the programme, 90 per cent had to leave New Zealand to find a job, most of them going to Australia.
“While we hear people talk about Australia having racism, here in New Zealand, there clearly was some form of bias that was preventing these highly qualified and resilient people even getting interviews, let alone a job. When they moved to Australia, often within a week they were offered positions.”
HATE SPEECH
Employment is just one example of the many barriers Muslim women face in New Zealand. Safety is another area Danzeisen has advocated for, long before the mosque attacks. “We were having girls yelled at and harassed on the way to school. Nobody should have to experience that. Even if they weren’t physically in danger, that sustained verbal abuse has an impact on people.”
Around the same time, Danzeisen took charge of government engagement for the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand. Those in the Muslim community were concerned about the rise in Islamophobia and hate speech in New Zealand and were calling on the government to step in. “We were warning the government about our safety and asking for help,” she says. Such efforts were laid out in the IWCNZ’s submission to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch attacks.
“By 2017 IWCNZ had become gravely concerned with the level of Islamophobia and alt-right activity and had a sense of urgency that action at a national level needed to be taken to protect and support the Muslim community,” it wrote.
On 20 February 2019, less than a month before the Christchurch attacks, the IWCNZ warned police about a message received on Facebook, threatening to burn a Qur’an in front of a Hamilton mosque on 15 March. The individual’s location was identified as Christchurch. Danzeisen contacted the police, concerned about the threat and others they had received. “[The officer] did not seem to take the matter too seriously, saying the individual posting was known to the police, suffered from a mental illness, and would likely not harm anyone,” the IWCNZ stated.
Since the attacks, Danzeisen’s advocacy has become heightened. She, along with the IWCNZ members, has emerged as a key spokesperson for the community, pushing for the Royal Commission of Inquiry, ensuring victims had access to funding support after the attacks and working with immigration to help relatives of the impacted families come to New Zealand. Disappointed with the Royal Commission’s conclusion that nothing could have been done to stop the attacks, Danzeisen and the IWCNZ are now focussed on bringing the issue to the Chief Coroner to look at the wider cause of the attack – how the terrorist became radicalised, any indicators that were missed, and the role that social media played.
“[The Coroner] should investigate it so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again, not just to our Muslim community, but any other community because we understand the pain and the years of rebuilding that’s going to have to happen just to get our community to the state where it was prior to the attack,” she says.
Looking back at the response since the attacks, Danzeisen says the attitude towards Muslim New Zealanders has progressed. “When I walk out shopping now, they’re actually engaging. People have taken time to learn about other people and cultures and they’re willing to have a dialogue. This wasn’t happening
before.” There is a greater sense that the Muslim community is finally being included in the fabric of the New Zealand identity. “We’ve been here for six to seven generations, but there weren’t pictures of us included. We fit into the picture now.”
However, where the general population has progressed, the shortcomings of the government have become all too apparent. “There are positives in the public service. The Ministry of Education, for example, has started to make progress in upskilling teachers and the Ministry of Social Development has the best engagement model for us,” she says. “However, the actual machinery of the public service hasn’t changed – and it’s a danger if it doesn’t.”
An apparent lack of communication and resistance to share resources between government agencies has halted real progress, she says. “Because they’re not working together, they don’t actually address the issue, it just gets tossed around. That thought process and ethos has to change. You have to have consequences when people aren’t listening fully.”
In an average week, Danzeisen is consulting with educators, police, lawyers and government officials – as well as doing her job as a high school teacher. Advocates like her give up their own time, often time they would have spent with their families, just to ensure their voices are heard.
At many times, it is frustrating and progress is slow. Two years on from the attacks, Danzeisen is still pushing the government for stronger security against hate crimes. As a prominent public figure, she gets threats herself. The exasperation is evident in her voice. “We’ve been asking the government, but two years out, we haven’t even had the in-depth
“IF YOU’RE ASKED FOR HELP, YOU SHOULD DO SO IF YOU CAN.” ALIYA DANSEIZEN
discussion on matters. How many kids are going to get harassed before they get around to doing something? It’s challenging and embarrassing when someone keeps telling you ‘no’ – your own dignity is being pushed.”
A NEW SADNESS
The exhaustion takes its toll. Right after the attacks, Danzeisen was averaging two to three hours of sleep a day. Even now, it’s rare she’ll get more than six hours. While she still finds moments of joy and celebration, the days since the attacks have been tinged with sadness. “There is a melancholy behind it that wasn’t there before; I hope it will go away but I wonder if it will. I’m a different person because of the attacks. I’ve had to be a lot stronger – and I’m not the only one.”
Two years on, the Muslim community is grappling with the trauma, wading through the pain and grief while trying to financially support themselves, advocate for better protections against hate speech and hold the government to account so that they, and all the other marginalised communities in Aotearoa, never have to go through what happened on 15 March again.
Of the 51 victims killed in the attacks, 47 were men. This left many wives, mothers, sisters and daughters forced to step up and shoulder the burden. Danzeisen has seen their resilience come through. “If someone had told me before the attacks, these women could go through this and be so strong, resilient and brave, I wouldn’t have believed it,” she says.
“In our community, the women have held the line together and bolstered each other in really challenging times. I’ve seen these women rise up and do so with elegance and an insistence that they’re going to persevere despite what anyone does.”
It’s this strength that Danzeisen relies on herself when faced with the tough job she has taken on. Self-care can be elusive, she admits, yet she still finds calmness and joy in the small moments, like going for walks along the beach or laughing during her favourite morning radio show. Most of all, being a figure of hope drives her to keep fighting. “We have in no way met all their needs, and as a nation, community and individuals, we need to do more,” she says. “But to provide a little bit of hope for someone when there’s nothing else around is a very powerful motivation.”