Inconvenient truths behind bloodshed
An anti-Muslim terrorist has killed 50 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. A large number of individuals, including two Turkish citizens, survived the attacks with injuries.
Here’s the unpleasant truth: What happened in New Zealand was not an isolated incident. The terrorist was part of a transnational far-Right movement that has reared its ugly face in other places – from Anders Breivik in Norway to the National Socialist Underground in Germany. Nor was it necessarily unprecedented. Muslims around the world endure the same kind of demonisation, hatred and discrimination that informed the New Zealand attacker’s twisted ideology. Here’s another inconvenient truth: many Western governments still believe that anti-Muslim terror falls within the scope of freedom of expression. In most cases, advocacy of violence is not considered a crime if white people (as opposed to people of colour) engage in it. Today’s toxic environment could not have existed without the West’s tacit complicity in the spread of racism and Islamophobia around the world, through its politics and media coverage.
Sadly, there was nothing ‘‘extraordinary’’ or ‘‘unprecedented’’ about the mass murder that took place in New Zealand. Those talking points and media reports and perspectives must change if the world wants to stop the bloodshed for good.