Mosque attack author says story must be told
The South Canterbury author of a yet to be published book about the Christchurch mosque shootings says the negative reaction to a proposed film about the terror attack is ‘‘unfortunate’’.
Members of the Christchurch Muslim community say they have been ‘‘blindsided’’ by the announcement of a film, They Are Us, about Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s response to the attacks on March 15, 2019, which has gone into the early stages of production.
St Andrews man Tom O’Connor, a former journalist, Waimate District councillor and former Grey Power national president, is preparing a book about the shootings, and said while no-one owned history, writers and filmmakers need to be mindful of sensitivities surrounding major tragedies.
‘‘Had the survivors and the immediate families of the victims of the catastrophic event been better informed of plans for the film their reaction may have been different, but equally they don’t have the power of veto,’’ O’Connor said.
‘‘It also seems a little discourteous not to have at least notified the prime minister of the plans for the film, but that appears not to have happened either.’’
O’Connor said he has completed a manuscript for a book on the shootings but has held off publishing for more than a year while the events were ‘‘still raw’’.
He said it was not unusual for some people to oppose the publication of negative or tragic stories.
‘‘I struck that when I set out to write about the loss of the Russian passenger liner Mikhail Lermontov in the Marlborough Sounds in 1986 and a few people did not want me to write about the fate of Irish convicts who escaped to New Zealand from Australia in the 1830s.
‘‘But they are part of our history as the Christchurch massacre is, and they need to be properly recorded.’’
He said members of the Muslim community, police, emergency services and experts in several fields were involved in the planning of the book.
‘‘But we still held off publication until some of the raw edge of the massacre had been blunted by the passage of time.’’
O’Connor said Ardern was told of plans for the book in the early stages, and he has the consent of the chief censor to use some text from the killer’s banned manifesto.
‘‘That sort of material needs to be handled with care and compassion, but it could not have been entirely omitted from the record.’’
O’Connor said it was somewhat novel to negatively critique a film before it had even been made or screened.
‘‘Historians are not limited to recording pretty and pleasant events. We also have an obligation to accurately record the tragic and ugly events as well.’’
O’Connor said while it had ‘‘not been a particularly enjoyable experience’’ putting the book together, he was pleased to get contributions from Muslim academics about what the event meant and the history of Islam in New Zealand.
‘‘What I wanted to do was give an account of the event itself and then the response to it,’’ O’Connor said.
‘‘While the Muslim community was the target of the Christchurch murders, that terrible event happened to all of us.
‘‘It was our country under attack, and we lost our innocence on that day.
‘‘That needs to be recorded while the people directly involved are still able to share their memories and experiences as horrible as they were.
‘‘It’s not about sensationalising the event but ensuring there is an accurate record for future generations to learn from.’’