Alison Mau: ‘The individual gesture of placing flowers is small, but look what many gestures together can do’
What can change in the course of one week? Gun laws, complacency, innocence. Our image of ourselves as a safe place. Hopefully ignorance and bigotry, although we will have to taihoa before we can make a final call on that one.
This week has been a story of the individual and the collective, one of us and all of us.
Everyone’s heard stories of individual bravery and seen the power of community, in the big and the little things, some of which stick hard in your brain – the heroism so huge it boggles the mind, like Abdul Aziz and his eftpos/weapon, and Naeem Rashid, who died as he stepped into the line of fire to tackle the terrorist. The first responders faced with rivers of blood and the hospital staff who fought to save as many as they could.
The individual gesture of placing flowers is a small one, but look what many gestures together can do; now the flowers stretch, metres-deep, into the distance at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens, and have become a place of mourning. The individual decision by a non-Muslim, who may have walked or driven past a mosque a thousand times in the past but never ventured in, to make that leap of understanding is a small one; but on Friday afternoon mosques around the country were ringed with Kiwis showing their support.
The number of times in the past week we have said something new – ‘‘As-salaamaleikum’’ (may peace be with you).
Even the incongruous things deserved a closer look – for example, members of the Mongrel Mob standing guard outside a mosque. This seemed odd, counter-intuitive almost. I gave sociologist and gang expert Jarrod Gilbert a shout and he told me overt symbols of white supremacy, like swastikas, have been banned by many gangs including chapters of the Mongrel Mob. This week the Mob gave up its Nazi-themed salute, too, so perhaps it’s not a hypocritical move after all. It’s undeniably a good example of the significance of this event.
‘‘Without question, having members of Black Power, Mongrel Mob, King Cobras, Hells Angels, Tribesmen, and probably others I haven’t seen, come out in this way after a tragedy is utterly unprecedented,’’ said Gilbert.
The members of that Hamilton mosque welcomed the Mob’s gesture, so that’s all we need to know, and isn’t that typical of everything we’ve seen in the past week? The way non-Muslim New Zealanders have reacted to the attack on our Muslim people has been mighty – but the reaction of those of Muslim faith, even mightier.
As we grieve for them, they have been comforting us. Much has been said about the way our prime minister has held herself and the leadership she has shown in the past eight days, and all of that is warranted – but look at the way she’s been welcomed and comforted, the patience and grace she’s been shown by people whose minds must have been on their own grief and the task of burying their dead.
The media has been shown similar patience, even though by the end of the week the strain on bereaved families must have been enormous. On Thursday, after the bodies began to come home, they finally cracked and asked for privacy. No shouting, no pushing, no threats, just a quiet and dignified plea for a bit of space.
I know I’m certainly not alone in noticing the way the Muslim community has held itself. A close friend who lives in central Auckland came home on Wednesday to find a note in his letterbox.
It said: ‘‘We wanted to reach out to our neighbours to let you know we are there for you if you ever want to talk, if you have any questions or just want to touch base.
‘‘It has been an immensely sad time for us, we are a very small community in New Zealand and nearly every one of us knows someone who has been injured or even perished at the hands of the terrorists in Christchurch.’’
My friend had not known his neighbours were Muslim. The letter went on to invite the residents of the street to visit their local mosque and noted that many locals had already done so this week.
It finished like this: ‘‘If you ever need us, your neighbours are here for you. With mohabbat (affection) and shukr (gratitude).’’
They’re the ones who’ve been hit and yet they have the extraordinary grace to want to comfort us.
There have been bursts of entirely understandable frustration. Islamic Women’s Council representative Anjum Rahman wrote a searing piece that must stand as the most affecting piece of writing of the past week. With unapologetic rage she laid out the efforts made in the past five years to get somebody – anybody – in government or the bureaucracy to heed the warnings and take anti-Muslim sentiment, threats and attacks seriously. In her exhaustion and frustration her words were like daggers, and there must surely be some red faces in Wellington as a result.
It’s a trap to imagine the bereaved must be ever-grateful for the love and support their fellow New Zealanders are showing them. Of course they’re grateful. Let them rage as well, if that’s what they need. If so many things had been different, little and big, lives could have been saved, and that should make us all angry enough to change for good.
The way non-Muslim New Zealanders have reacted to the attack on our Muslim people has been mighty – but the reaction of those of Muslim faith, even mightier.