Brutal Terrorism in New Zealand

By : Dr. AbdelHak Azzouzi

President and Founder of Moroccan Strategic and International Studies

The brutal terrorism which struck New Zealand days ago, is not the first of its kind; we certainly remember the attack which happened in Norway, more than five years ago, by a young man, 32, who was trying to, as he put it, "purge Europe of Muslims by 2083" via inciting a "crusade war against Muslims". Prior to committing his crime, he published on the Internet a " Manifesto "or a 1,500-page charter written over three years, combining how to make bombs guide, with what he thinks about Islam and multiculturalism in Europe and the world. He also wrote about what he thinks with regard to policies and decision-makers in Europe, as well as the historical citations of radical Christians and inciting propaganda.  Murderer Brevik also expected that he, himself, will be named the most tough Nazi monster since WWII, but he regarded himself as "the commander of the truth knights".

Days ago, 49 people were killed and others had serious injuries in attacks targeted two mosques in Christchurch city, southern New Zealand.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardenne told reporters Sunday that she had been among more than 30 people who had received a statement sent by the attacker. She confirmed that the statement arrived nine minutes before the attack and that it was completely empty of any details or reference to the location of the attacks. It had also been sent to the security authorities two minutes after receiving it. On its part, Facebook confirmed that it deleted 1.5 million videos of the attack within 24 hours.

The terrorism in New Zealand and Norway, as I believe, is the result of negative Western rhetoric and policies against Muslim immigrants for decades, which were constantly fueled by the visual, audio and printed media, and set the Muslims as hostages to political and security calculations, which equated between immigration and terrorism, integration and drugs & crimes. This hostility which is appealing for some people, was increased after September 11, 2001, which is mentioned by every one who wishes to get as much votes as possible. This was reflected in hostile campaigns such as one in the US to burn the “Qur’an” one in Switzerland to prevent the construction of minarets, and one in France to ban wearing face veil.

We remember that just before passing the last two laws (banning the construction of minarets and banning the face veil), there were harsh campaigns. Special meetings in parliaments were held, as well as daily television and conferences took place throughout months. The heads of both states and their advisors attempted more than once to explain the matter, by claiming that Muslims are hard to assimilate. These sort of discourses were supported by fanatics, and accordingly, became much stronger and appealing by time.

Western countries are now full of rightest populist parties that benefit from three basic factors:

• Feeding ideas, such as racism, extremism, nationalism, superiority and phobia from foreigners. These are fastly jumping into minds at Western societies, especially with daily crises still there such as unemployment and prices soaring.
• Right-wing extremist parties are usually appealing during elections.
• Western parties know that the goal of extreme right-wing parties is fuel the feelings of hostility towards Muslims as if they are “body cancer” that must be removed. Politicians tend, by time, to adopt the same discourse, to get more votes. This turn the extremists’ voices into more tough and aggressive, but also more ‘legitimate’ there.

What happened in New Zealand and what happened in Norway, is painful lesson for all the Western politicians who reached highest positions at the expense of fueling the hatred for Islam and Muslims and boosted hostility. This all generated terrorism and will generate more of it unless the campaign against immigrants stops.

I liked that many at Arab media did not describe the Norwegian terrorism by ‘Christian terrorism’, as terrorism has no religion, but it’s a global lesion.