Brenton Tarrant was sentenced last week. The Australian national who butchered, with relish, 51 individuals in Christchurch at Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre, found himself facing something unique in New Zealand: jail for life without parole. He pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one of terrorism. He also faced[Read More...]
Racism is as racism does. Islamophobia is as Islamophobia does.
Let’s not be too churlish about this; but then again, let us not be ignorant. The singer once known as Cat Stevens (in pre-conversion state), and known as Yusuf Islam to others, made a considerable impression on the stage in Christchurch. The slaughter of fifty at two mosques in the New Zealand city had made enough of an impression to[Read More...]
“Will it serve the purpose in curbing growing wave of Islamophobia in world or it will further potentiative it to level than ever” INSIDE OUT Sheikh Umar Ahmad New Zealand terrorist attack on Muslims in mosque was one of the worst attacks depicting rising wave of Islamophobia in world. This attack was taken by majority as a direct reflection of[Read More...]
The Christchurch tragedy has exposed the Canberra virus that haemorrhages hypocrisy, racism, lies, scaremongering and heartlessness infecting the Australian psyche. Normalised cruelty against asylum seekers Since Tampa, and more specifically since John Howard, Australia changed. Howard, the arch-white supremacist, monarchist and friend of pedophile Pell, spawned Abbott, Morrison, Dutton and the 28 LNP senators that voted it’s OK[Read More...]
Something is infinitely wrong in the picture, a juxtaposition of polar opposites: New Zealand, a country of unfailingly courteous and kind people, and an extremist terrorist killing 50 Muslims at prayer. Of course, modern guns made it possible, a hate-filled extremist of Australian origin set the stage, and a country not familiar with such violence — thus an easy target. [Read More...]
Politics around the world has been changing dramatically. Extreme right has risen into the power throughout the globe from the Donald Trump of US (2016) to Rodrigo Duterte of Philippines (2016) and from Victor Orban of Hungary (2010) to Jair Bolsanaro of Brazil (2019). Rise of[Read More...]
“And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” (Howard Zinn, late American historian and distinguished[Read More...]
Never let a bloody and opportune crisis pass. In New Zealand, there is talk about gun reform after attacks on two Christchurch mosques left fifty dead. There have been remarks made in parliament about unchecked white supremacy growing with enthusiastic violent urge in Australasia. In Turkey, the approach has shifted into another gear: the canny, even menacing exploitation by Turkey’s[Read More...]
Jewish supremacists in 2000 celebrating Baruch Goldberg’s massacre of 29 Palestinian Muslims in the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron The Christchurch shooting and ensuing furor over white supremacy brought to mind a similar massacre of Muslims in a mosque in Palestine perpetrated by a Jewish supremacist several decades ago. Two recent headlines about fascism have coalesced in my mind into mirror images.[Read More...]
