The Christchurch attack was an act of terrorism
“Hello brother,” called out one believer as he saw a vicious barbarian stride towards him. The response to his greeting was a cold-blooded shot taken at almost point blank range. The Muslims of Christchurch were gathered for Friday prayers, most of them from far-flung violent areas around the world. They found peace and tranquility in the otherwise secure New Zealand. But their hopes of a peaceful society were cut short by the harrowing shots fired by Brenton Tarrant.
The self-proclaimed far-right white supremacist unleashed himself onto the Muslims huddled together for their weekly religious prayer. Unarmed, peaceful civilians were attacked by this barbarian who aimed each shot to kill and even repeated those shots to ensure death. The Muslim-bloodthirsty vampire mercilessly shot women, children and the elderly for the sole reason that they were Muslims.
Almost 50 people were martyred in this attack on Islam. This was nothing else but an attack on the Muslim community and Islam as a whole. A simple attack to instill fear and terror into the hearts and minds of the Muslim community. Though the community continued to carry on as usual however, a level of insecurity was indeed brewed into the minds of state authorities. This is what prompted authorities to deploy armed policemen outside mosques in New York amongst others.
While New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern turned out to have much more nerve than expected and called out Tarrant as a terrorist, the rest of the international community stood bewildered and short of words. They simply couldn’t label a white man a terrorist. Their blinding white supremacist egos hidden deep within themselves couldn’t allow them to call out the vicious attack a terrorist one.
Maybe, the definition of terrorism should actually be changed in the dictionary and should be made to include only those forms of violence connected to Islam one way or the other. Otherwise, as the social media is full of rants, such incidents can at best be labelled as isolated gun attacks or mass shootings. Even though the sadistic intentions of the fascist shooter were crystal clear.
He wanted to turn one of the most peace-loving countries into a violent zone to prove a point that nowhere is safe. The audacity of his fascism is such that minutes before actually undertaking the horrific act, he released a manifesto in which he detailed the reasons for committing the act.
Incidents such as the Christchurch attack make it evident that terrorism has no religion. Anyone can be the target of a terrorist attack irrespective of his or her religious beliefs
The video of the entire incident livestreamed from his own camera reflects his merciless attitude, and his indiscriminate firing is evidence of his terrorizing intentions. These acts only meant to create an aura of terror. Yet, the West’s media and leaders couldn’t rake up the courage to label him a terrorist. Although labels do not matter as long as lasting measures are being taken; however, incidents such as the Christchurch attack make it evident that terrorism has no religion. Anyone can be the target of a terrorist attack irrespective of his or her religious beliefs. But if they accept this to be a terrorist attack, then they will have to accept the fact that Islam indeed has nothing to do with terrorism.
Extremism and fanaticism are two concepts that can be found in a person belonging to any sect, belief or religion. The blood spilt of the peaceful people of Christchurch is the evidence of Islam’s isolation from terrorism. In fact, it seems to be the other way round. The intention of Tarrant was to inflict pain to anyone belonging to the Muslim faith. It didn’t matter if they were women, children or the elderly. What mattered was their connection to Islam.
Fascist terrorism and barbarism unveiled its true face in the form of Tarrant when he attempted to silence the believers. What escaped his attention was the unnerving faith that the people of Islam have. In fact, he misconstrued the level of allegiance that the Muslims have towards their faith. Rather than scaring away worshippers, he ensured that their numbers multiply in wake of the attack. An unconfirmed video claimed to be shot hours after the attack, in the same mosque, shows a man giving the call to prayer, thereby reflecting that these rounds of gunfire could do little to break the resolve of the Muslim community.
The ferocious methods through which Tarrant sent the worshippers to their Creator, have no differences from the methods adopted in the past by ISIS. In fact chilling similarities can be seen if we observe closely. Both have the same thing in common, the absence of humanity. Yet, it would be asking too much from the West to label it as a terrorist attack. Illiterate, idiosyncratic leaders such as Australian senator Fraser Anning, whose belittled minds enable them to blame the victims of a horrific terror attack for the it and attempt to vilify the people on the basis of their religion, should be condemned and in fact made an example out of. The leader of the so-called free world should at the very least call out such statements made by the senator of an allied nation so as to discourage similar ones from within the world leader.
A failure to attribute this incident to terror would be damaging for the West in the future. It would give rise to similar attacks orchestrated by white supremacists. The terrorist did prove a point, that no place on Earth is as safe as one would assume it to be. This notion should be dispelled by active action against similar ideologists. Right-wing white supremacists should be detained and investigated the same way Muslims were targeted after the 9/11 attacks.
We all are either brothers in faith or equals in humanity as taught by Imam Ali (A.s) and this is what we should adopt as a policy towards the world at large. The general public throughout the world stood by the victims of the attack as their equals in humanity.
In the end, no matter how many shots are fired, the sound of Allah O Akbar can never be extinguished from our hearts.
