What do you do when a delusional, far right extremist commits a vile crime such as the heartbreaking murders in Christchurch and at the same time publishes dozens of pages of self-justificatory ramblings, laughably referred to as a ‘manifesto’.
It seems dangerous to even discuss the contents and give oxygen to his views. But the genie is out of the bottle and these killings are global news event. Tarrant’s self-confessedly racist rant is already being shared far and wide. Refusing to discuss it is only likely to lead the curious into the hands of Google. ]
Tarrant’s coded references to ethnic cleansing and repeated description of ‘invaders’ in Australia, New Zealand, Britain and France, is indicative of the dehumanisation necessary for a person to commit such an atrocity.And the dehumanisation of Muslims runs through his document like letters through seaside rock.
The manifesto is pretty delusional. His hope to show such “invaders” that “they will never replace our people” is as misguided as it is paranoid. His cowardly attack on a soft target won’t do anything of the sort.
But this document is not what it appears on the surface. It is a dog whistle to like-minded fanatics, mixed in with bizarre references to internet memes geared to sympathetic online audiences. Just as he references the text Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik published, Tarrant hopes to inspire other attacks. The ghastly spectacle of viewers gloating and congratulating him as he live-streamed his rampage demonstrates such an audience is there.
And while the numbers who might actually copy Tarrant are small, much larger numbers are influenced by such words. He is speaking to a global audience, hence the references to alleged wrongdoing by ‘invaders’ around the world, in France, Sweden, Rotherham. So the document is dangerous.
I am not sure it helps to castigate Facebook and Twitter for being too slow to pull the gunman’s livestream of his actions from their servers. Once it was streamed from his GoPro it was out there and it is incredibly difficult to prevent it from finding its audience.
But the internet is at the heart of this, from the manifesto’s call outs to online sub-cultures to the banal response by Donald Trump extending ‘thoughts and prayers’ to New Zealand. Indeed ‘thoughts and prayers’ has itself become something of a meme. In the US, Republicans and National Rifle Association activists routinely announce their thoughts and prayers are with victims of America’s now commonplace mass shootings. (The Gun Violence Archive has logged 55 this year, there were five on January the 19th alone). Gun control campaigners deride these comments as a way to divert discussing something which might actually help, like – you know – gun control.
New Zealand will now look at its own gun laws which do little to prevent people buying and owning semi-automatic military style weapons. One of the shocking aspects of the images emerging from Tarrant’s social media are the huge magazines of some of the weapons he owned, which was how he could scribble bizarre ‘tributes’ all over them, celebrating past holy wars, and alleged ‘heroes’ of the far right.
Who is to blame for the violence in New Zealand? Anyone who pushes a ‘them and us’ narrative, and anyone who fails to challenge it Not just Tommy Robinson or Theresa May, with her Go Home vans or Donald Trump, hailed in Tarrant’s screed as a symbol of “renewed white identity and common purpose”.
Them and us is always toxic. Glasgow comedian Amna Saleem summed this up yesterday as she angrily attacked those who plead for nuance when an attacker is white but carelessly stoke Islamophobia when a terrorist is Muslim. Will we see demands that Australians root out their extremists as is routinely asked of muslims? What about Queensland senator Fraser Anning who callously blames Muslims for their own slaughter. “Does anyone still dispute the link between Muslim immigration and violence?” he said
Whether the terrorist is white or brown, some people will always blame Muslims. But being Muslim doesn’t protect you from either. It is cognitive dissonance, Amna Saleem says. “Muslims die on both sides. We die by the hands of Islamists and Islamophobes. We died during 9/11, in London and in Paris. We are just people! No one in these attacks was spared for being Muslim.”
The organisation Muslim Advocates says Thoughts and prayers from America are not enough. The president must disavow white nationalism, and this attack” it said.
And we all need to do this. We need to condemn all extremism ,no matter the source, and recognise that it doesn’t matter where ideologies of hate take root.
“We will not allow these people to divide us”, Jeremy Corbyn said: “an attack on one community or faith group is an attack on all of us.” At first glance, I thought this was platitudinous, but the more I think about it, the more I think Mr Corbyn is absolutely right
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