Dear Nurture Her reader,
In 2019 I watched local families from all diverse cultural backgrounds grieve alongside me and mine in silence and with tears streaming down our faces as we stood in solidarity, heartbreak, and pain for our Muslim brothers and sisters. I also saw many women in our community including police officers and our own Primeminister wear a scarf over their heads for this purpose for the first time in their lives as they stood outside mosques dotted all around Aotearoa. This was their response to the repulsive sick terrorist attack and murder that took place at two different Mosque locations in Christchurch on the 15th of March 2019.
I was driving down this same street when I noticed a large number of people and police outside this mosque, I felt something eerie like something was really off so I turned the radio on to tune into the news, something I hadn't done for years. I'll never forget 15th March 2019 or the heart-tearing pain and uncontrollable grief I felt so much I to pull my car over to the side of the road. I sat in complete shock over my steering wheel, unable to catch my breath fast enough between the stream of tears sobbing out of me while I hung on every word coming from the breaking news kill count announced. Fathers, Mothers, Sons, Daughters, and babies who had simply been gathering in peaceful worship before being shot and murdered in cold blood.
As far as I’m aware this was the act of one repulsive sick fuck who in his cold and extremely calculated and long term premeditated intent to kill as many people as he could referred to members of our local based Muslim communities in his own words as “these invaders”. This evil white supremacist wasn't even from here himself and had only been in our country as of 2017.
He set out to pour his evil white supremacist beliefs directly onto our Muslim communities specifically and to spread his hate ideologies in what I feel was his desperate pitiful attempt to be seen, heard, and to feel significant. He might have accomplished that but as one of the victims, family worded perfectly;
And other victims loved one who also expressed directly to the murderer in court -
Life imprisonment with no parole is his present and future which is absolutely practically NOTHING in comparison to the heart-tearing pain and traumatic NIGHTMARE that all the survivors and whanau of all the victims will live with for the rest of their lives. These precious beloved 51 murdered victims aged from 3 years old to 77. Grandparents, Fathers, Mothers, Sons, Daughters, kids, babies.
Our country, Aotearoa NZ is considered a safe country to live and raise your family in the world. I've met tonnes of migrant families who have told me so themselves, those who relocated here before this evil event, and many who are still desperately hoping and trying to get over here from overseas.
This day in our present times was a wake-up call for us all, not for race relation issues we’ve always had, but for how easy it was for this evil monster to kill and attack 91 humans young and old, peacefully gathering in prayer at two different locations and through a live public stream for all to see and still come out of the whole ordeal physically unharmed. To say I was repulsed, sick, and mad as hell that this could happen in our country in our present-day for how far we've come is an understatement.
The land of my tupuna, the only place in the world I proudly choose to raise my babies... how could this happen?
What also put me into a state of shock was the response of (some) locals' indifferent attitudes and incredible inability to put themselves in the shoes of these victims, survivors, and each of their living whanau who were directly impacted by this traumatic nightmare, and then dealing with the new fear for their own and their children's lives.
The (some locals) includes the ones who call themselves Christians who I saw on the news and also in my own town who had the audacity to dismiss what was needed on a basic humanity level to support where and how support was needed following this tragedy but instead saw fit to jump on their various versions of soapboxes and declare their defense of their Christian beliefs as their response as if the support that was given and shown by our government and nation was something to be insulted over, fkn seriously??
Confused, repulsed, angry, and hurt is what their responses made me feel and a timely reminder of how stupid and disconnected some humans can be to not feel another person's pain or put themselves in their shoes yet on the other hand they would not only expect it but demand justice and empathy if they were in the same position.
Our Christian history that was introduced by the first missionaries was in part I believe part of the colonization process forced upon my people. Don't get it twisted though, I love Jesus Christ and I pray in his name every time but I feel it very important to point out that if those who didn't care to just took one second to think what Jesus would’ve done during this traumatic time, perhaps they might've wised up to realize JC's response would've been nothing but LOVE & COMPASSION - no soapboxes, no weird-ass private message petitions or social media posts’ no feeling the need to stand and defend religious beliefs in his name, just LOVE & genuine humanity care straight from the core.
It didn’t cross my mind for a split second to NOT feel offended or make a judgment call on our PM for how she honored the victims and survivors and their whanau and all our Muslim communities in the only way a true leader needed to during the incredibly painful and tense time that did and has followed since that terrorist murder attack. Her world-class leadership diffused any potential threats that many locals feared and her leadership brought the majority of us together in solidarity as a nation.
No ones perfect. I speak from self-acknowledgment but I do encourage that next time you see someone who doesn’t look like you, dress like you, speak like you, or pray like you, just stop for a minute, take a breath and put yourself in their shoes to consider how you’d want to be treated as human.
Everything I’m passionate to do through my Nurture Her services whether it be the content I create for you here to my social media posts or my mobile self-care pamper services I provide locally all comes from my passion to uplift other women especially Mothers. So I'd be remiss if I didn't share what one of the victims' loving and understandably broken Mothers spoke directly to the terrorist murderer in court. Her words to him and from the media reports his most non-desensitized response illustrates the power of Mother's love.
[media sources] - rnz, apnews, bbc, stuff
Comments
Post a Comment