White Supremacists were lying low for a long time, but Friday’s shooting in two New Zealand mosques demonstrate their lethality yet again. Some 50 people were killed in the shootings in two mosques, five of them Indians, and the ire was targeted at immigrants. Worse, the assailant live-streamed the incident to millions across the world via social media platforms, adding to the pathos of this human tragedy.
Islamophobia is at the root of the incident as is clear from a manifesto assailant Brenton Tarrant posted online and reached New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden too. It was thick with anti-immigrant and anti-Islam sentiments. Notably, the assailant has referred in specific to attacks on Whites in Nice, France, which saw an Islamic suicide bomber using a truck to mow down over 80 unsuspecting people in 2016. Tarrant’s sojourn through Europe in the past four years also seemed to have occasioned his radicalization and eventual motivation for this act. The mass migrations from Asia and Africa to Europe and elsewhere, causing strain on natives’ lives, have been a matter of serious concern to governments too. Now, White Supremacists appear to have taken things too far, and its implications are grave.
As of now, no organised terror group is behind this act. It was an isolated act by an Australian, who found that his plan to target immigrants could be better executed in New Zealand where it was easy for him to procure guns due to lack of strong anti-gun-running laws there.
Social media demonstrated its ugly side. Both Facebook and Twitter could not block the live streaming online of the horror scenes from the scene of the shootings. They did make an effort after being alerted, but the automated software was of no help. It could not distinguish between a game video and the Christchurch video. Neither could the hate manifesto be taken out before it reached millions of viewers and users of online platforms which spread anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim content over a period of time.
Global action against terrorism of various persuasions, mostly of the Islamic fundamentalist kind, still lacks the sense of seriousness it deserves. China, itself a victim of Islamic terror in its western provinces, is backing Pakistan’s attempt at UN to protect its agents of terror. The US is serious about terror acts when its own interests are directly affected. Big talks will not help unless UN and lead nations like the US and China demonstrate a resolve to squarely face global terror networks. White Supremacists have arrived with a bang. This is a warning and a wake-up call to Islamic nations as well.