Women don scarves as nation mourns
WOMEN all over New Zealand wore headscarves yesterday in solidarity with Muslims a week after 50 people were killed at two mosques in Christchurch last week.
A doctor in Auckland, Thaya Ashman, came up with the idea to encourage people to wear a headscarf after hearing about a woman who was too scared to go out as she felt her headscarf would make her a target for terrorism.
“I wanted to say: ‘We are with you, we want you to feel at home on your own streets, we love, support and respect you’,” Ashman said.
As Christchurch geared up for prayers at a park in front of the AlNoor mosque, where most of the victims were killed, women in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch posted pictures of themselves in headscarves.
“Why am I wearing a headscarf today? Well, if anybody else turns up waving a gun, I want to stand between him and anybody he might be pointing it at. And I don’t want him to be able to tell the difference, because there is no difference,” said Bell Sibly, in Christchurch.
New Zealand briefly came to a standstill yesterday as the country mourned with a nationally broadcast Muslim call to prayer followed by two minutes of silence.
Around 20000 people gathered in Hagley Park, opposite Al-noor mosque where a suspected white supremacist gunman opened fire at worshippers during prayers last Friday.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was at the ceremony, said before prayers: “When any part of the body suffers, the whole body feels pain. New Zealand suffers with you, we are one.”
Ardern, who wore a black headscarf, sat with praying women.
The mosque’s imam, Gamal Fouda, lead a prayer and told mourners: “Last Friday I stood in this mosque and saw hatred and rage in the eyes of the terrorist who killed 50 people, wounded 48 and broke the hearts of millions around the world.”
“Today, from the same place, I look out and I see the love and compassion in the eyes of thousands of fellow New Zealanders and human beings from across the globe who fill the hearts of millions.
“The terrorist tried to tear the nation apart with evil ideology but instead we have shown the world that New Zealand is unbreakable,” he said.
Fouda thanked Ardern for her leadership, describing it as a “lesson for the world’s leaders”. |