The attacks on the mosques in Christchurch were not tied to terrorism until recently. Even after the Internet was flooded with horrific scenes of reprisals against defenseless people and a manifesto of the shooter was published, where he himself called his act a terrorist act. It was as if the New Zealanders tried not to think that they too could be defenseless against the threat, and now the country seemed to freeze in grief, unable to believe what had happened.
In the afternoon of March 15, a young man in camouflage and a motorcycle helmet entered the Al-Nur mosque. He walked without hiding, carried automatic weapons and additional clips to them, but no one tried to block his way, call the police, or even ask what was going on. He entered the mosque, closed the doors and opened fire on the believers sitting on the floor. After, according to the police, he drove to another mosque in Longwood by car and went back inside quietly, closed the door and opened fire.
26 minutes after the start of the shooting, the mosques were surrounded by armed policemen, but there was not even talk of an assault. There were dozens of dead and wounded in social networks and the media, and what was happening was still considered a "firearm incident." After another 10 minutes, Brenton Harris Tarrant got out of the mosque and got into his car, parked nearby. There he was detained by the police.
The name Tarrant (a man accused of attacks on mosques in New Zealand) was not named by the police. He was first identified by journalists and users of social networks. On the eve of the attack, which he himself called a terrorist act, Tarrant posted on his Twitter page (which is already blocked) a multipage manifesto calling for the killing of world leaders. The same manifesto at one time was published by Anders Breivik, who committed the terrorist attack in Norway in 2011, as a result of which 77 people were killed and another 240 were injured.
Brenton Harris Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian citizen, worked as a trainer in one of the gyms of Grafton in the north of New South Wales until 2011, and then went traveling around Europe. According to his colleagues, he was an ordinary person interested in his work, willingly helped children, participated in free, charity programs. Tarrant himself described himself as an "ordinary white man" who was born in Australia into a "working-class family."
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jasinda Ardern, described the incident as a terrorist act several hours after Tarrant’s arrest and three other people (their involvement in the matter is now in question), after the meeting of the country's Security Council. From now on, New Zealand seemed to be living in a new reality. In the one where it is difficult for special services to prevent terrorist attacks and people die in them.
Church of Christ
The name of the city of Christchurch is translated into Russian as the Church of Christ. This is a fairly large, by New Zealand standards, settlement: about 400 thousand people live here permanently, and the local community is almost closed to migrants. Over the past three years, the city received only 18 people, and metropolitan Wellington, almost equal in population, for example, for the same period - 967 people. So the Christchurch population is a fairly cohesive community, and this is exactly the case when the neighbors know each other and are often friends of families. It is difficult to enmity and hate.
However, it was here in February 2018 that the police detained a young man practicing Islam, who intended to commit an “act of intimidation”. He wanted to send the car to the crowd and finish off the victims with a knife. After this incident, Christchurch once again plunged into its usual calm and safe life, where the biggest events were small car accidents. Before the attack on the mosque remained a little over a year.
Darkest day
"I never thought that this could happen here" - this phrase today can be considered the main one in New Zealand. She, like a spell, is repeated by all kiwis, regardless of religion or ethnicity. “We knew, we were convinced that we were safe. The New Zealand version of extremism was a fight at the Fully Black game (New Zealand rugby team). But it was until yesterday, but now everything is different,” the head of the New Zealand news service writes. Bay of Plenty Times newspaper Sonya Bateson, and her words very accurately reflect today's mood in society.
Now it's really different: New Zealanders know that their country is no longer a safe haven. But still there is in their statements and comments on television and in social networks something other than fear. Now it became clear to them how long their country had lived a little apart from the rest of the world, as if, without paying much attention to what was happening around, without plunging. It was as if they didn’t care about the troubles that disturb the others while their own harbor is safe. Or while she seems so.
“Now we all feel guilty for just shaking our heads, hearing about mass executions in the United States or about terrorist attacks in European cities. We have long been convinced of our own safety, believing that our laws are strong enough to protect us, and culture Kiwi is too isolated, different from others and there is no xenophobia in it. We were cruelly mistaken in thinking that we live in another reality and now it seems the time has come to pay for this mistake, "continues Sonya Bateson of the Bay of Plenty Times. Incidentally, she was one of the first journalists who entered the Al-Nur mosque before they brought out all the injured and wounded from there.
In the next few weeks, New Zealand will of course have a number of changes: the law on weapons circulation will be revised (tightened), the complex approach to protocols and security requirements will change, the presence of police will become more tangible, as will the rigidity of migration requirements, but this is hardly whether the new Zealander can return to the old serenity and sense of self, the last island of peace in the world. The era of innocence for New Zealand is over.
Now on the quiet streets of Christchurch there are almost no cars - the traffic in the center of the city is still blocked by the police, but there are amazingly many stunned people here. They bring white lilies and candles to the fences of mosques, stand silently, and then leave to return to the scene of the tragedy a few hours later - hundreds of thousands of bouquets at mosques not only of Christchurch, but also of the whole country. On self-made posters that New Zealanders carry along with flowers, it says “This is not us, this is not New Zealand,” as if people still cannot believe that this has happened to them and in their country.