Television Russell Baillie
In his latest documentary, journalist Patrick Gower talks to victims of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings as he investigates hate.
He has done weed, meth and lockdown. Now, Patrick Gower is taking the high-rating series of documentaries that bear his name to look at the aftermath and possible causes of the March 15, 2019, Christchurch terrorist attack.
Titled Patrick Gower: On Hate, the programme has its foundations in Gower’s news reporting on the mass shootings and the contact he has had with those who survived and those whose loved ones were among the 51 killed. He describes it as “a victim-led documentary”, saying it has “had to walk a very careful line to respect them, but make sure the true horror is not erased”.
The doco has been viewed by victims and Muslim community groups. Gower is undoubtedly conscious, perhaps, of the anger that greeted the mooted feature film They Are Us. It was his reporting that uncovered the script the overseas makers were using to attract finance, and that effectively buried the project.
As with its predecessors, which were also directed and edited by Justin Hawkes, On Hate isn’t above using some cinematic touches of its own. A running timeline of how the attack unfolded is intercut throughout as a tension builder. And although none of the terrorist’s Facebook video stream is used, there is distant CCTV footage of him shooting from his car at an elderly father and adult son as they walked towards the Masjid Al Noor mosque. Muhammad Amin Nasir survived three bullets and, from the same location, he and son Yasir Amin recount what happened.
Likewise, when another survivor, Wasseim Alsati, describes his and his fouryear-old daughter’s near-fatal encounter with the terrorist on the same street, it’s chilling and harrowing. You might also worry that his vivid account will find its way into a film script or storyboard one day.
The now-familiar figure of Abdul Aziz Wahabzadah reenacts how he threw an Eftpos machine at the terrorist, then chucked one of the gunman’s discarded firearms at his car. Although some accounts may risk being worn smooth in the retelling, it’s the stories of grief and survival that give On Hate its emotional punch. The account of Sara Qasem, who lost her father, Abdelfattah Qasem, reminds there is no getting over something like this.
Gower introduces the programme as “bringing the personal stories and official investigations together for the first time”. That has been done elsewhere, as is shown by the doco’s use of those reading victim-impact statements at the terrorist’s sentencing. Presumably, that “first time” is a reference to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the attacks, which delivered its report late last year.
Also interviewed is Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who reflects on the day and the commission’s findings.
She says, “It is human to think, ‘Was there something we could have done? Was there something that could have stopped this?’ But I didn’t want to wonder about that. I wanted someone else to tell me, ‘Yep, there was a moment and this was it.’ But they couldn’t find that.”
Gower picks the brains of Professor Paul Spoonley about the rise of alt-right and white-supremacist ideology and how platforms such as YouTube have acted as a global megaphone. Gower also offers a mea culpa for his infamous interview that gave alt-right propagandists Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux a chance to be heard when their 2018 speaking tour caused a free-speech furore here.
“That was a fail,” Spoonley tells Gower. “I failed,” agrees Gower. l
Patrick Gower: On Hate, Three, Tuesday, 8.30pm.