What we must learn from the Christchurch attack
The horrific attack on two mosques in Christchurch by a white nationalist, killing 50 people last Friday, was the biggest terrorist attack ever in New Zealand. The nature of this “lone wolf” attack, and the manifesto of the man who carried it out, must give us serious pause.
First, there is no other way to describe it except as a terrorist attack. If terrorism is mass violence against civilians for political ends, this attack meets the definition of terrorism. Given that it involved mass murder for explicitly declared political aims, against innocent individuals, there is no way one can, or should, escape the conclusion that this was an act of terrorism.
The above is precisely for those people who insist that white nationalist extremism must not be called terrorism, but merely an “overreaction” or a “violent reaction” or “shooting” some such relatively benign thing. The reluctance to call violent white nationalist extremism terrorism brings out an obvious bias in those who show such reluctance. For they are willing to call even a stabbing by an Islamist extremist as an act of terrorism. There is a significant degree of truth in the Leftist notion that terrorism is a phrase reserved for violent Islamist extremism. The reactions on the Right, and not merely the far-right, to labelling the Finsbury Park attack two years ago as an act of terror proves, at least partially, the validity of this claim.
Partially, because there was a time when Northern Ireland was said to be in the grip of terrorists, who were entirely non-Islamic. In India, the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Ealam was known as a terrorist organisation, and it was not Islamic either. So, adding the post 9/11 rider, one can more or less validate the claim that “terrorism” has been a term reserved nearly exclusively for violent Islamists.
If we accept that mass violence against innocents for a political purpose constitutes terrorism, then, in India, (most likely) the Samjhauta Express blasts, the Malegaon blasts, the Ajmer Dargah blasts would be added to the list of terrorist attacks by non-Muslim extremists in India. Murderous attacks by cow vigilantes on innocent Muslims could also blur the line between mob violence and terrorism. Of course, this categorisation is likely to enrage those who espouse the Hindutva ideology, but we do not (or should not) temper our terminologies based on anybody’s feelings.
Luckily, the international media has been less averse to using the term “terrorist attack” while referring to the carnage in Christchurch. This is a welcome change from the reluctance shown by publications in the past to call white nationalist/anti-Semitic/white supremacist/anti-Muslim mass violence terrorism. This is likely to usher in a new era where terrorism is not defined almost exclusively by the religious or ideological belief of the attacker.
(In fact, I am proud to say that I was one of the first to use the term “terrorist attack” for the Christchurch massacre, in articles written by the publication I work for).
Second, the Christchurch attack must come not only as a lesson to the Right, but also to the Left. Those on the Right who insist that white nationalism is an insignificant problem in comparison to Islamism must now wake up and look about. It is no longer prudent to claim that the days of racist or anti-religious white nationalism are over, and the upsurge in nationalistic politics in Europe and America in recent years is an aberration.
But there is a lesson here for the Left too. The Left must stop excusing Islamist terrorism by simply pointing out the so-called “root causes” — the favourite among them being Western imperialism. No one, except those on the far-Right, actually denies that Western imperialism has been an important factor in the growth of Islamist sentiment in the Middle East and elsewhere. This too has a parallel in India, where the atrocities of the police in Kashmir (contrary to common liberal belief, the Army isn’t oppressive except in isolated cases) and the rigging of the 1987 Kashmir elections have been significant factors in the rise of terrorism and anti-India sentiment in the state.
However, it is problematic to stop the buck here — whether at Western imperialism or Indian actions in Kashmir — and place the blame squarely on these actors. As evidence, I might point out that while the Islamic State group emerged out of the ashes of the Iraq war, a minuscule minority of the Iraqi population joined the terror group. A very small fraction of those who suffered at the hands of American imperialism thought it fit to join the most hideous group in centuries. This is true across all victim populations. Only two Sikhs out of millions living in India saw fit to murder Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. Very few Hindus out of a billion took up arms against innocent Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. It is clear that while bad or contentious actions by powerful states or entities tend to increase the possibility of radicalisation, by itself these actions do not constitute the “root cause” — rather only one of several causes.
But this is not the end of our analysis. In the end, the buck stops with the individual. For there does exist something like free will, though it may be compromised by our inability to cast off this compulsion of possessing a free will itself. No provocation, in the final analysis, justifies mass slaughter, especially of innocents. Every human being has the ability to overcome hatred and prejudice, even if the conditions around him encourage the opposite.
What I am trying to imply is this — white nationalist ideology is, in the final analysis, responsible for the Christchurch massacre. Islamist ideology is, in the final analysis, responsible for Islamist terrorism. Those who imbibe these ideologies do so consciously. They make a choice. They are not machines fully controlled by their circumstances. If people had no free will worth the name, we could not fault the Christchurch attacker for his actions either. Indeed such a conclusion would be preposterous to most liberals — because it is preposterous.
Those who commit apologia for Islamists, or Hindutva extremists, or white extremists, rush to condemn the extremists they don’t empathise with. This does not make sense if human beings were merely a product of their surroundings. So its time we let go off the “root cause” theory, and focus on eliminating bad ideologies from our societies.
