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Reaction to NZ attack improves interfaith trust
The mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, last month could have set off a wave of retaliatory incidents around the world, but an empathetic response from the government and people of New Zealand was key in helping boost global solidarity with Muslims
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span>The mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, last month could have set off a wave of retaliatory incidents around the world, but an empathetic response from the government and people of New Zealand was key in helping boost global solidarity with Muslims.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s stance proved pivotal in the aftermath of the massacre, in which a lone gunman killed 50 Muslim worshippers at two mosques on March 15.
Part of the bloodbath was even live-streamed by the Australian white supremacist perpetrator, who has since been arrested.
The attacks sparked anger among Muslims globally, but Ardern’s decision to immediately describe the incident as a terror attack — a move rarely made by leaders in the West — effectively eased tensions, said Nasaruddin Umar, the grand imam of Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta.
On top of that, the majority of the population condemned the act and even banded together alongside authorities to stand guard over mosques while worshippers continued praying.
“Such forms of empathy should be a lesson learned for us on how to respond to terrorist attacks and to dampen the heat of anger,” Nasaruddin said at a discussion hosted by the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) in Jakarta, on Monday.
“New Zealand did not understate the incident. If it had done so, it might have triggered revenge-seekers around the world, which in turn would have diminished interfaith trust.”
A Pew survey in 2018 found religious restrictions were rising worldwide — in 42 percent of the 198 countries surveyed. Christians are restricted or harassed in 144 countries, Muslims in 142 countries and Jews in 87 countries.
In this context, New Zealand’s handling of the mass shooting found wide praise.
Ardern enjoyed her highest approval ratings since taking office in a widely watched poll on Monday, The 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton political survey showed 51 percent of respondents said Ardern was their preferred prime minister, climbing seven percentage points from the last poll in February.
Since coming to power in 2017, Ardern’s youth and global celebrity has given critics doubt. But the 38-year-old leader struck all the right notes in the hours after the Christchurch attack.
Ardern promptly labeled the mass killing as terrorism, and set about reassuring a nation that has been largely unscathed by the violence and fears that have afflicted other countries in the past two decades, Reuters reports.
Picture of Ardern wearing a head scarf and comforting families affected by the massacre went viral on social media, and garnered praise from Muslims around the world, as well as leaders of other nations.
Nazaruddin also credited Ardern’s wearing of the headscarf in an observation he recently made while speaking on peaceful Islam at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
“In the middle of my speech, we all were invited to go outside for a moment of silence for the Christchurch victims. There I saw female students and teachers wearing headscarves like Prime Minister Ardern,” he said.
It is in this light that I see that interfaith [trust] has grown stronger, so let us not disrupt it with any other wrong moves,” he said.
New Zealand’s chargé d’affaires Roy Ferguson said the “grief and shock are still very raw”, underlining that the shootings did not represent the multicultural nation.
He said that continued interfaith dialogue with Indonesia was something Wellington “intends to grow further”.
