At 1.40pm on the 15th of March, New Zealand saw one of its darkest days since 1990 when Brenton Tarrant, an Australian white supremacist, initiated twin shootings at Mosques in Christchurch during Friday prayers. These devastating attacks resulted in fifty people losing their lives and fifty others being injured, twelve in critical condition. Both the Masjid Al Noor and Linwood Masjid Mosques were targeted in what can only be described as acts of pure evil grounded in a profound hate. Less than ten minutes before the gunman opened fire in the first mosque, he emailed his 74-page manifesto titled ‘The Great Replacement’ to the office of the New Zealand Prime Minister as well as numerous global media outlets. By this time, it was too late for anyone to initiate action as he had already started his attack, live streaming all seventeen minutes of the horrific attack on Facebook.
Two days on, precautionary security remains in place not only in Christchurch, but also around mosques around the world, in cities like New York and London. Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, has described the attack as ‘as act of terror brought to our shores and rained down upon us’ and has committed to gun reform to address the ease with which the gunman was able to obtain the semi-automatic firearm.
Global leaders have united to condemn the attack and show their support to the victims and their families, as well as the broader Muslim community and the people of Christchurch, whose peaceful and tranquil nature was shattered on Friday. Statements poured out on social media by global
leaders such as Theresa May, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and monuments such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Eiffel Tower were coloured black in solidarity. The world at large is still grappling with yet another attack in recent years of profoundly racist, hateful and anti-immigration sentiment that manifested in acts of unspeakable violence on the peaceful.
Bill Shorten, the opposition leader in Australia, stated, “not all right-wing extremist hate speech ends in violence, but all right-wing extremist violence started in hate speech”. This speaks to the fundamental problem that exists in global rhetoric, research and security: it is either white hate crime or Muslim terrorism, with a lot more resources being poured into the latter.
Tarrant is not an outlier but rather an example of what happens when a person with extremist views is so reared up online that he becomes radicalised. He avidly posted on 8chan, a message board that is known to be house some of the darkest areas on the Dark Web, and his descriptions his plans were met with messages of praise, even after the massacre ensued. This site is almost identical to the platforms that radical Islamist groups such as ISIS use to gain followers and contains the same sort of algorithm for radicalisation. He was enabled by the Dark Web which is a feature that is similar in other forms of terrorism. The difference is that hate speech, right-wing extremism and white supremacy is not monitored with the same sort of rigor on the internet.
Donald Trump, when questioned by reporters after the New Zealand massacre, expressed his deep sympathy for the Christchurch community but he did not share the same sentiment that right-wing terrorism was a global threat. He articulated that this form of terrorism was a small group of people with “very, very serious problems” but for now he did not know enough about it except that the New Zealand example was a terrible thing and a potential example of this form of terrorism.
This demonstrates the need for a stronger focus on the emerging patterns and increasing prevalence of right-wing extremism. Tarrant’s manifesto itself referenced people he revered and praised such as Andres Behring Breivik, a Norwegian far-right terrorist who murdered 77 people in 2011. This attack was an example of self-radicalisation online just as in the present case with Tarrant. In 2015, Dylann Roof, a 21-year old right wing radical, murdered nine African Americans in Charleston during a church service. In 2017, there was a mass shooting in a Quebec mosque which killed six worshippers and injured many others. More recently, in October 2018, the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was shot up killing eleven people and injuring seven.
What these devastating attacks have in common is the notion of a white revolution against the ‘invaders’. Right-wing radicals thinking that non-white people (immigrants, Muslims, Jews) are breeding out the historically white and revered people. White supremacy is no longer confined to nationalists but internationalists as there is now a counter crusade to wake up the world to the ‘threat’ of immigration.
Although It is extremely difficult to maintain a physical right-wing terrorist group in Western democracies due to a lack support and safe havens, this generation is acting via the online underground platforms. These platforms prove to be a hotbed for radicalising disenfranchised and extremist individuals by proliferating hate and there needs to be greater focus and more regulation on monitoring this form of terrorism to the same rigour as jihadi terrorism.
For now, the world will continue to stand in solidarity with the victims of this devastating attack and the marginalised communities around the world who feel they are not welcome. We will continue to condemn horrific acts of hate and hope that will proper monitoring, our intelligence agencies
recognise the real threat that hate speech may have to incite violence. We will continue to hope for a better tomorrow.
