New Zealand terror attack at mosque

[Wokko]

There's a time and a place to bring up grievances and immediately following a terrorist massacre isn't it. I thought the same thing about Anning, even if what he and Milo said is 100% correct it's just crass to push it right now.

[Pi]

A good article by Ed Husain on the whole thing; interesting that the mind set of one terrorist is the same as another the only thing that’s different is the ideology. Even then there’s not a lot in it, they feed each other and borrow each other’s methods.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/oceania/far-right-racists-want-to-destroy-open-societies-20190316-p514qk.html

[thesoretoothsayer]

[think positive]

[Pies4shaw]

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-overton-window-how-white-nationalist-ideas-made-their-way-into-our-political-debate-20190318-p5152k.html

[stui magpie]

[Pies4shaw]

From that article:

"The suspect, a white man in his late 20s, took two years to plan the killings, but laid out in his "manifesto" the six years of reading, travelling, thinking and conversing with other racists that led to his decision to kill Muslims. The manifesto reads like a new version of Mein Kampf. Nazism is alive in our midst and we must be vigilant against it."

[Morrigu]

[stui magpie]

[Pies4shaw]

[Wokko]

[Pies4shaw]

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/welcome-to-the-latest-edition-of-its-never-ever-white-peoples-fault

[Pies4shaw]

Here's the answer to "free speech", of course. Speech is not "free":

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/christchurch-islamophobes-media-anti-muslim

If you have been paying attention, you will know that there is now a genre of response protocol that is followed after attacks on Muslims. It blows dog-whistles even as carnage is unfolding. A ghoulish routine has become established. It usually goes like this. Condemn the attack in the strongest terms, and then water down that condemnation. We mustn’t get carried away, you see, and forget about the context. Attacks against Muslims must not stop us from continuing to criticise Islam and Muslims when it is warranted. The unvoiced subtext is that maybe these particular Muslim victims didn’t have it coming, but such atrocities don’t come out of nowhere. But, you know, thoughts and prayers at this difficult time.

Following the Christchurch massacre, there is an article I could write today to explain the danger of this forked-tongue response. An article that exposes the fallacy of thinking that extremist hate crimes can be separated and quarantined from the fact that western societies have become radicalised against Muslims. An article that tries again to show the link between mainstream, fashionable Muslim-bashing and its violent manifestations on the right. An article that fillets the semantic tricks played to stop Muslims ever being complete victims: the line that Islam is not a race; the use of women’s and LBGT rights as a rhetorical stick to beat Muslims with; the cant about freedom of speech, political correctness and the danger of identity politics; the whataboutery and the strawmanning.

....

I am not going to write that article today, or ever again. The reason is simple, and it is this. I used to write on the assumption that people didn’t quite fully see the danger and ubiquity of casual hate speech against Muslims, and how it has been racialised and associated with immigration. Naively, I used to think it wasn’t necessarily an obvious danger, because people had been subjected to Islamic terrorism and were coming to terms with that, sometimes sloppily and irresponsibly, but understandably.

I no longer believe this to be the case. Politicians and the media know exactly what they are doing. They know that hating Muslims sells, whether it is for votes or for clicks or for profile raising. They know that there is a sweet spot where prejudice against Muslims and anti-immigration sentiment intersect, and that the former is a good way of legitimising the latter. They know that there is a market for racism, but one that isn’t simply based on skin colour – that’s too difficult to justify openly – and so “Muslim” became a good shorthand for the unwelcome other.

....

It is too late to ring the alarm bells once again. Events have overtaken that approach. The warnings have failed and the world has changed. Because the message about Muslims, unchecked, has morphed into something far bigger than one that results in sporadic hate crimes. It has become incorporated into a white supremacist narrative that has borrowed successfully from the playbook of legitimate concerns, weaving anti-Muslim hate into a tapestry along with antisemitism and anti-immigration.

....

It is time to stop pleading. It is time to call things what they are and not temper or apologise for the strength of the allegations, to call people racists, opportunists and complicit hatemongers even if they do grace our prestigious publications and seats of governance. It is time to do what they always accuse you of doing anyway, and “shut down the debate”.