The massacre in the two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, (more on this later) illustrates the danger from white supremacists.
The worst nightmare of white supremacists is that the ‘other’ might, in the not so distant future, replace them; with Muslims being the worst. Which means that they would not only lose their privileged position but might even suffer the kind of domination and indignities they visited on others, as with slavery, colonialism and in all sorts of forms.
Even as former colonies were asserting their independence, the new language of international discourse divided the world into three categories of the First World that included the US-led Western bloc, the Second World that included the Soviet bloc in this new Cold War era, and the Third World of newly independent countries.
In this era, the newly independent nations had the stark choice of joining either of the rival blocs because in this Cold War era any pronounced neutrality invited the wrath of the blocs, particularly from the US-led Western bloc, which controlled the global economy.
The compassionate and empathetic leadership of New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, truly stands out and she was rightly called ‘Sister’ at the prayer service a week after the massacre
Any former colony that tried to be too independent found it very hard to access international finance for their economic development. In other words, in so many ways, their independence was circumscribed. They had to fit into the power politics of the Cold War era. Which, by its very nature, created global instability as well as regional conflict, as in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the nineties with the US as the only remaining superpower, the world remained a chaotic place; further compounded with the 9/11 al Qaeda inspired terrorist attacks on the US. Which led to the US invasion of Afghanistan (still playing itself out) and the 2003 invasion of Iraq– still not sorted out.
President Bush’s war on terror created its own terror by way of Islamic extremism, like the rise of IS, supposedly now dying out.
In the midst of it all, Islam increasingly came to be identified with terrorism. Against this backdrop, Muslim immigrants already living in Western countries and the new immigrants came to be viewed as potential terrorists and Islam a threat to Western(or Christian) civilization.
Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, who fancies himself as the savior of Christian civilization, recently emphasized the need to save “the Christian identity of Europe.”
He reportedly told the German newspaper, Bild, that refugees should rightly be seen as “Muslim invaders.” And he is not the only one spewing such hatred. Social media is full of such dangerous extremist right-wing drivel.
It is against this backdrop that Brenton Tarrant, a rightwing ideologue, enacted the Christchurch massacre of Muslims in two mosques, killing 50 worshippers.
His manifesto titled, “The Great Replacement”, was, in his demented way, a wake up call for like-minded white supremacists to save their ‘civilization’ to prevent its replacement by Muslims and Islam.
The narrative is simple and hence its appeal. In 2012, The French author Renaud Camus published Le Grand Remplacement in which he argued that native “white” Europeans were being reversed colonized by non-white (mostly Muslim) immigrants.
He added that, “The great replacement is very simple. You have one people, and in the space of a generation you have a different people.”
This ‘replacement’ by Muslim immigrants (largely) and by them having more children has become the core belief of the so-called Generation Identity or, Identitarians, among extreme right-wing/white supremacists in Europe, the US and with some variation, here and there, in Australia and New Zealand. But New Zealand seemed an unlikely testing place for this ideology.
The Christchurch shooter, Brenton Terrant, was an Australian living in New Zealand for some time. He was radicalized by trawling right wing social media platforms and by his foreign travels, especially to France.
He traces his radicalization in part to his 2017 trip to France. He reportedly explained: “For many years I had been hearing and reading of the invasion of France by non-whites, many of these rumours and stories I believed to be exaggerations, created to push a political narrative.”
He added, “But once I arrived in France, I found the stories not only to be true, but profoundly understated. In every French city, in every French town the invaders [Muslims] were there.”
Whatever the source of Tarrant’s white supremacist ideology and motivation, it has been a monstrous act against a people praying in a mosque.
In this sordid and abominable saga, the compassionate and empathetic leadership of New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, truly stands out and she was rightly called ‘Sister’ at the prayer service a week after the massacre.
.The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia