On 15 March 2019, a right-wing terrorist killed 51 people of the Muslim faith in an attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Although the attack took place just three years ago, it has largely disappeared from the collective memory of mainstream German society. Yet Germany, where every conceivable mistake was made at an institutional level in dealing with those affected by the attack in Hanau a year later, could learn a lot from New Zealand.
On 15 March 2019, 51 people were killed in Christchurch, New Zealand, who had gathered for Friday prayers, including New Zealanders, people with biographical ties to Egypt, Bangladesh, Fiji, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Tunisia, Somalia, Syria, the UAE, and other countries. The perpetrator streamed the attack via action camera live on Facebook for a real or imagined audience. His social media activities and a ‘manifesto’ that he left behind provided insights into a world view of conspiracies and myths, the core of which were anti-Muslim racist narratives.
During the investigation into the attack, the enormous interconnectedness of right-wing networks and their references once again became apparent, as well as how widespread the willingness to use violence against Muslims is worldwide. From Australia, the perpetrator’s increasing anti-Muslim radicalisation can be traced through his travels to anti-Muslim pilgrimage sites throughout Europe and the contacts he made in the far-right scene during those years. In reconstructions of his online activities, it becomes clear how widespread and interconnected right-wing populism, hostility towards immigrants, and anti-Muslim racism in connection with racialised ideas of white supremacy are around the globe. Even if the perpetrator acted alone that day, labelling him a ‘lone perpetrator’ is misleading. As in the case of many such ‘lone perpetrators’, his online and offline activities in these hermetic networks prepared him to commit his crimes. The perpetrator was not alone in his convictions.
Both the chronology of his social media posts and inscriptions left on the murder weapons represent a genealogy of anti-Muslim references that begin with the Crusaders and extend to honouring soldiers who fought against the Ottomans, to right-wing terrorists who had recently attacked mosques in the USA and Canada, and culminating in references to the Utøya gunman and the Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadžić, who has been convicted of genocide.
Like the racist killers of Utøya and Hanau, the perpetrator wrote a ‘manifesto’ that provides insights into the ideological groundwork for his crimes. What unites these manifestos and the people who refer to them is a combination of various racisms with anti-Muslim, antisemitic, and misogynist beliefs.
The perpetrator of Christchurch titled his manifesto ‘The Great Replacement’. The conspiracy narrative of the ‘Great Replacement’ is one of the main motifs of right-wing groups worldwide. At the centre of this ideology is the ‘Muslim’ bogeyman. Time and again, reference is made to Europe and Germany. The perpetrator knew that he was united in spirit with many. This racist ideology particularly targets Muslims and associates their mere existence with the danger of a ‘racial death’ of European societies and a ‘replacement’ of the ‘white race’. The ideology also unites the New Right with right-wing terrorists in Germany; ideological links that now extend as far as the German state parliaments and the Bundestag.
New Zealand may be geographically far away, but as the attack was directed exclusively against people with a history of immigration, in this case decidedly Muslims, it was an incisive experience for many Muslims in Germany and others affected by racial violence. The violence was far closer to the reality of their own lives than geographical distance might suggest.
For Muslims in Germany, the attack is part of a long and painful history of violence. For them, it is linked to the (for a long time, largely ignored) danger to Muslims and other BiPoC, which has not diminished since the early 1990s, since the murders and violence in Solingen and Mölln. On the contrary: be it the murder of Marwa El-Sherbini in a German court, the violence of the NSU, or the recent attacks in Halle and Hanau – the threat is current and acute. Not to mention the numerous acts of hostility and physical attacks on people, mosques, and cemeteries. This is all a part of the complex of anti-Muslim racism, a form of discrimination that has only recently been addressed as a problem for society as a whole. From a Muslim perspective, the political sphere long underestimated the potential danger of anti-Muslim racism for Muslims in Germany, with politicians having only recently begun to take it seriously. It was a long road to the inclusion of anti-Muslim offences in crime statistics, and a long road before an interior minister spoke of anti-Muslim racism as a problem for the first time after the Hanau attack.
In view of the feeling of solidarity with the victims, the terrorist attack was also a moment in which many Muslims would have liked the non-Muslim German public to identify more strongly with the victims. One audible criticism was that more public sympathy, for example in the form of official moments of silence, would have been desirable. Muslims and people in solidarity with them asked themselves whether public sympathy would have been different if the victims had not been Muslim migrants. Muslims in Germany addressed the attacks much more strongly and for a longer time on social media platforms, while they were soon forgotten by the majority society.
How a diverse society with very different levels of connection to such events can deal with this intensity of group-based violence is a question that goes beyond this one attack. In this context, it is very important to find a language that rejects victim competition, relativisation, and political instrumentalisation. In this case, it is very important to me personally that everyone recognises a shared responsibility to prevent discursive radicalisation everywhere, and that no one can shirk their responsibility using the trope of the ‘lone perpetrator’.
The balancing act of creating a shared remembrance of an event while still taking into account the special situation of those directly affected, appears to have been successful in New Zealand. New Zealand is an example of how an immigration society can succeed in not obscuring the fact that the victims are from a specific group while creating a space for all members of society to mourn. Muslim organisations in Germany also praised this approach. Prime Minister Arden emphasised pride in that which the perpetrator rejected, a society of diversity, and expressed the solidarity of all New Zealanders with the victims. ‘They are us’ became a slogan to counter the denial that the victims belonged to New Zealand society. The prime minister’s statement was not just about showing empathy with the victims or declaring a belonging to them. She deliberately did not choose ‘Je suis…’ or ‘Today we are all…’, i.e., the equations that have been criticised in previous cases by those affected by racism. No one who is not affected by racism can take on the burden of racism through a simple statement. With the statement ‘They are us!’, those affected were brought into the common we. This is exactly what the perpetrator did not want to accept. On a symbolic level, identification with those affected was also symbolised by New Zealanders’ demonstrative wearing of a headscarf at events, including the prime minister.
These are impressions and gestures made in the moment, images and statements that went around the world for a few days. The fact that the perpetrator’s name was consistently not mentioned after the crime in New Zealand, and that the media only portrayed him in pixelated form during the trial in order to prevent him from receiving the attention he had hoped to gain from the crime – an approach that also found its way to Germany – had a lasting effect. As far as public remembrance in New Zealand is concerned, those affected are still included today. This year, on the third anniversary of the attack, the relatives of the victims were also asked about their needs. We should also learn from this consistent orientation of the commemoration towards the needs of those who suffered most of all due to the attack.
Although there were imitators in the aftermath who referred to the murderer in their acts of violence against Muslims and Jews, there was also a great deal of solidarity on the other side, which gave rise to new alliances. The relatives of the victims were not alone in coming to terms with the event. There was support from private and public sources. Notable here is the support of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh (650,000 USD), which in turn wanted to express its gratitude and solidarity with the Muslims who supported the Jewish community of Pittsburgh after 11 Jews were murdered in an antisemitic attack on a synagogue there the previous year. The worldview of the two perpetrators showed parallels; however, people are not only connected through hatred, but also through empathy and solidarity. Connecting those affected by right-wing extremist violence and creating networks of support for one another is not just a sign, but an important way to raise the awareness of the general public to the fact that the phenomena are connected – and to motivate them to take action.
The discussion about the risk of radicalisation in digital spaces and the responsibility of social media platforms also gained momentum in New Zealand. The terrorist attack showed that anti-Muslim racism is not an isolated opinion but, alongside antisemitism and misogyny, is a core element of far-right racist ideologies with great connectivity that have repeatedly led to extreme acts of violence and will continue to do so in the future if they are not resolutely countered. We must make room for the perspective of those affected; they can feel the threat much earlier in their everyday lives. As with other forms of racism, we must also recognise language as an early warning sign in the case of anti-Muslim racism. We must listen carefully so that words are not followed by deeds.
