After the tragic events of the Christchurch bombing, there was bound to be overreach by NZ politicians, but this one takes the cake.
Allowing the Muslim "Call to prayer" to be published seems a bit of over reach. I mean, in my previous post, I mentioned that democratic nations generally need to keep their minorities happy (Muslims make up 1.14% of the NZ population), but broadcasting a fairly provocative "Call to prayer" in Arabic, which also includes the terms used whenever a militant Islamic extremist blows shit up ("Allahu Akbar"), is not ideal.
Most New Zealanders can get aligned with the gun law changes introduced, but this Call to prayer stuff will alienate the majority. Misstep
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Thoughts on Christchurch - Part 2
As a way of trying to understand what might have motivated the Christchurch shooter, I have started reading the works of Anthony D Smith who is a prominent thinker about nationalism.
Opened up the book, "Nationalism in the 20th Century" which is a pretty good book and strangely predictive in some of this thoughts regarding ethnic-nationalism. It was published in 1979, but its words ring true today.
He mentions that as communications has improved, so has the ability to raise educated or moneyed "elites" from different regions who feel like they have outgrown their provinces in which they reside.
Those provincial elites move for opportunities and start mixing in the world cities, and competing with those established people who then need to compete with these newbies. The competition and the fact that they have moved from their "tribe" means that they never feel like they belong, especially if they are non-traditional, i.e have no want of marriage or family.
Due to this disconnect, they then look for other ways to identify themselves, either through cultural norms like religion, nationalism or via appearance, like skin colour. And as secularism and equality has become more and more a part of life in the Western world, it can lead to racism and skin colour as a way of identification.
Smith mentioned that the more democratic a country is, the more weight is given to minority opinion. Which certainly does seem to be the case in Australia and New Zealand, where miniority opinions seem to hold a great deal of weight. Again, this can lead to the feeling by the majority that they are neglected or not receiving attention and can push these disaffected people into the arms of extremist movements.
And this seems like exactly what happened to Brenton Tarrant. A typical non-traditional young man with no interest in family, limited education, who was elevated to elite status by inheritance and felt he outgrew Grafton, a small town in NSW.
Decided to travel the world, again got exposed to the huge amount of diversity that exists compared to Grafton (which is a homogenous generally white town). Moved to New Zealand, a fairly diverse country in itself and found he couldn't compete economically and culturally and was isolated. Was non-religious, so instead turned to skin colour as a way of identifying and finding power, and hence took the step to anti-Islamic thinking which lead him to the horrors that occurred.
So after all that, what is the answer. How can we prevent this thinking. Well it is clear that education of the world is important to ensure people are aware of the diversity that is out there. And a focus on religion and family to build those traditional frameworks which can prevent the warped thinking. Preventing the movement of the provincial elites is difficult as generally, economies have demand for skilled workers.
Realistically, the genie is out of the bottle. All we can do is to remember to look after the majority as well as the minorities.
Opened up the book, "Nationalism in the 20th Century" which is a pretty good book and strangely predictive in some of this thoughts regarding ethnic-nationalism. It was published in 1979, but its words ring true today.
He mentions that as communications has improved, so has the ability to raise educated or moneyed "elites" from different regions who feel like they have outgrown their provinces in which they reside.
Those provincial elites move for opportunities and start mixing in the world cities, and competing with those established people who then need to compete with these newbies. The competition and the fact that they have moved from their "tribe" means that they never feel like they belong, especially if they are non-traditional, i.e have no want of marriage or family.
Due to this disconnect, they then look for other ways to identify themselves, either through cultural norms like religion, nationalism or via appearance, like skin colour. And as secularism and equality has become more and more a part of life in the Western world, it can lead to racism and skin colour as a way of identification.
Smith mentioned that the more democratic a country is, the more weight is given to minority opinion. Which certainly does seem to be the case in Australia and New Zealand, where miniority opinions seem to hold a great deal of weight. Again, this can lead to the feeling by the majority that they are neglected or not receiving attention and can push these disaffected people into the arms of extremist movements.
And this seems like exactly what happened to Brenton Tarrant. A typical non-traditional young man with no interest in family, limited education, who was elevated to elite status by inheritance and felt he outgrew Grafton, a small town in NSW.
Decided to travel the world, again got exposed to the huge amount of diversity that exists compared to Grafton (which is a homogenous generally white town). Moved to New Zealand, a fairly diverse country in itself and found he couldn't compete economically and culturally and was isolated. Was non-religious, so instead turned to skin colour as a way of identifying and finding power, and hence took the step to anti-Islamic thinking which lead him to the horrors that occurred.
So after all that, what is the answer. How can we prevent this thinking. Well it is clear that education of the world is important to ensure people are aware of the diversity that is out there. And a focus on religion and family to build those traditional frameworks which can prevent the warped thinking. Preventing the movement of the provincial elites is difficult as generally, economies have demand for skilled workers.
Realistically, the genie is out of the bottle. All we can do is to remember to look after the majority as well as the minorities.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Thoughts on Christchurch...
Been thinking a bit about the horror of the Christchurch terrorist incident, specifically the person who was responsible for the event.
If we look into his background, the usual stats appear
1. Young male. Under 30
2. Lack of formal education
2. Childhood trauma
3. Poor upbringing
4. Radicalised
6. Not married/no girlfriends
7. A lot of free time.
Now here is the average bio of just about every terrorist foot soldier, religious or otherwise.
A couple of issues though that differentiate this event from the usual.
1. Where did he get his combat training? Very difficult to kill 50 people in a short period of time, even with modern weaponry. I don't believe you can learn this stuff playing first person shooters on computers.
2. Planning. This wasn't a random event. It showed a fair bit of strategy...i.e the clothing and equipment; knowing the targets, the timing...Friday afternoon to maximise the number of people who would be in the mosque. Moving to a new mosque after the first to continue the killings..all show a fair bit of tactical and strategic awareness that you wouldn't expect from a personal training from Grafton.
3. The psyops component. Live streaming the event and the manifesto does elevate the localised terrorist event into an international flashpoint.
It would appear to me that he has had some sort of assistance with his plot...either by people close to him, or the internet community. Which makes it even more of an intelligence/police stuff up.
Someone must have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to the white supremacist movement in New Zealand.
But regardless, it is pretty clear that we now have two terrorist threats in the world going head to head. Islamic terrorism (waged by the radicals in the Sunni religion) and its counter, anti-Islamic terrorism (which seems to have be co-opted by the global white supremacy movement). Both using the remote radicalisation model to get people to commit acts of terror in their own backyards, with their own cells and means (with some remote strategic assistance) And its not going to end well.
Not sure about the answer...but like every answer to terrorism ever engaged in the world, it lies in the political sphere.
More needs to be done by our politicians to make us all feel secure and content. Over the last 20 years, our economy and social culture has been changing at breakneck speed. I think we need to take our foot off the accelerator and start consolidating the gains that have been made.
If we look into his background, the usual stats appear
1. Young male. Under 30
2. Lack of formal education
2. Childhood trauma
3. Poor upbringing
4. Radicalised
6. Not married/no girlfriends
7. A lot of free time.
Now here is the average bio of just about every terrorist foot soldier, religious or otherwise.
A couple of issues though that differentiate this event from the usual.
1. Where did he get his combat training? Very difficult to kill 50 people in a short period of time, even with modern weaponry. I don't believe you can learn this stuff playing first person shooters on computers.
2. Planning. This wasn't a random event. It showed a fair bit of strategy...i.e the clothing and equipment; knowing the targets, the timing...Friday afternoon to maximise the number of people who would be in the mosque. Moving to a new mosque after the first to continue the killings..all show a fair bit of tactical and strategic awareness that you wouldn't expect from a personal training from Grafton.
3. The psyops component. Live streaming the event and the manifesto does elevate the localised terrorist event into an international flashpoint.
It would appear to me that he has had some sort of assistance with his plot...either by people close to him, or the internet community. Which makes it even more of an intelligence/police stuff up.
Someone must have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to the white supremacist movement in New Zealand.
But regardless, it is pretty clear that we now have two terrorist threats in the world going head to head. Islamic terrorism (waged by the radicals in the Sunni religion) and its counter, anti-Islamic terrorism (which seems to have be co-opted by the global white supremacy movement). Both using the remote radicalisation model to get people to commit acts of terror in their own backyards, with their own cells and means (with some remote strategic assistance) And its not going to end well.
Not sure about the answer...but like every answer to terrorism ever engaged in the world, it lies in the political sphere.
More needs to be done by our politicians to make us all feel secure and content. Over the last 20 years, our economy and social culture has been changing at breakneck speed. I think we need to take our foot off the accelerator and start consolidating the gains that have been made.
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