Under a remarkable young woman New Zealand is discovering deep resources of kindness and compassion. In the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre people touched by the tragedy built mountains of flowers and in their thousands attended rallies in support of the Muslims living in their communities.
In the saddest of circumstances Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern rose to the occasion and did what she said she never wanted to do, which was to express the grief of the nation.
In doing so she has projected a style of politics and public service rarely seen. Her actions have been acclaimed internationally by commentators around the world.
The Australian writer Peter Fitzsimons analysed her first comments made just after the shooting. He praised her poise and steely resolve, her inclusiveness and support for diversity. She didn’t say anything that was for political advantage or divisive, but was utterly inclusive. “They are us”, she said.
Fitzsimons said it was a magnificent speech, obviously off the cuff, obviously heart-felt, and calibrated to heal, to express the nation’s grief, to express the desire to move on stronger than ever before and to focus on aiming at it never to happen again.
“Many Australians wish we had leaders that could express that kind of inclusive, diverse, binding, uniting language” he said.
From the first hours after the massacre in Christchurch, in which fifty worshipers were shot dead and another fifty wounded in two mosques, Ardern has shown compassion, empathy and humanity, and she addressed several urgent and important issues. One was to ensure the availability of resources needed for the security of the city and the other was to address the deficiencies in the New Zealand gun laws.
She discussed a number of other issues. One was why the intelligence services didn’t know about the shooter in advance of the massacre and another was how to deal with the vilest of web sites that generate hate, division and conflict.
In her appearance too, Ardern has projected an image of calm, compassion, control and reassurance.
There is a photograph that has been shared thousands of times on social media. It was taken on the morning after the massacre. Ardern had flown from Wellington to a meeting of Muslim community leaders. The room was crowded so the photographer Kirk Hargreaves took the photo through a window.
It shows the Prime Minister in a Hijab, her brow furrowed and hands clasped, a picture of empathy, compassion, pain, suffering and courage. These are qualities she has reflected in her many statements, briefings and speeches since the shooting. Her delivery has been fluent, spontaneous and appropriate.
She didn’t waste time on platitudes about “thoughts and prayers”. In addition to projecting emotional support she managed the practical measures to be taken by her government. There would be help for the survivors and their families, funds for burials and other family support and extra security and police activity.
On the first sitting day of Parliament after the massacre Ardern repeated the phrases that have been at the core of her response from the first hours after the event.
Friday March 15 had become New Zealand’s darkest of days. The victims, Muslims killed at prayer, were New Zealanders. “They are us.”
She spoke of the bravery of the two country police officers who arrested the offender while he was still shooting and of the courage of the first responders.
There are many accounts of courage and sacrifice by worshipers inside the mosques as the gunman fired at men, women and children.
Ardern said the Cabinet had already agreed that an inquiry will examine what the authorities knew before the attack, what they could have known, and what they should have known.
Six days after the attack Ardern announced a comprehensive ban on Military Style Semi-Automatic guns and assault weapons.
But still fire-arms don’t need to be licensed In New Zealand. Cars and dogs must be licensed but not guns. The authorities in New Zealand have no idea how many guns are in the country and what sort they are.
Daily this presents problems for police. When the usually unarmed police attend calls to homes they don’t know what firearms might be present.
Combine that scenario with gun supply companies that are unrepentant when their guns are used for their designed purpose of killing. In the aftermath of the massacre the gun shop owner who sold guns legally to the terrorist refused to enter into debate about gun control.
Over the years efforts to tighten controls on assault weapons in New Zealand have been defeated. In 2017 a Select Committee of Parliament suggested twenty law changes. Most were rejected. The Police Association said it was a lost opportunity and, at the time, correctly predicted it would take a tragedy to bring the issue back to the table.
In her speech to the first sitting day of Parliament after the massacre, Ardern said she will never utter the offender’s name because one of the many things he sought from his act of terror was notoriety.
“And that is why you will never hear me mention his name.”
“To others I implore you: speak the names of those who were lost rather than the name of the man who took them. He may have sought notoriety but we in New Zealand will give him nothing, not even his name.”
Social media played a gruesomely significant role in the terror attack. Racist and white supremacy sites promote hate and violence. Web sites continue to carry pictures and video of the attack which had been live streamed by the terrorist as he fired his guns.
Ardern said the role social media played in the massacre will be examined.
“We cannot simply sit back and accept that these platforms just exist and that what is said on them is not the responsibility of the place where they are published. They are the publisher, not just the postman. This cannot be a case of all profit and no responsibility.”
To describe social media platforms as publishers raises the hope that one day in the future they could be brought under laws governing libel, decency and race discrimination. Web site managers who are ungoverned, unrestrained and unrepentant are a current problem for the New Zealand police investigating the massacre.
A web site operator, Joshua Conner Moon, is an American who runs a web site which is one of three being investigated by police tracking material posted by the terrorist. Moon has refused requests to supply details of the posts and video links. In a series of emails to New Zealand police he called their request “a joke.” His ranting abusive emails contained many expletives.
As the first funerals for the victims were held in Christchurch the impact of the massacre also incorporated a diplomatic crisis, although this too reflected well on Ardern and her government. The President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed the video of the shooting at election rallies viciously accusing New Zealand and Australia of Islamophobia.
The Australian government reacted strongly with threats that all options are on the table. New Zealand despatched its amiable Foreign Minister Winston Peters to Turkey to “set the record straight” face to face.
Erdogan had already moderated his views. He said in an opinion piece in the Washington Post “All Western leaders must learn from the courage, leadership and sincerity of New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, to embrace Muslims living in their respective countries.”
Out of the deepest of tragedies, at least one positive element as emerged as Ardern is recognised around the world for her deep resources of leadership and public service and as a role model for, and champion of, peace and harmony at the highest level.
Max Hayton is a former political journalist and foreign editor in New Zealand.
Max Hayton is a New Zealand journalist who worked as a political correspondent in the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Wellington in his younger days. He then traveled to London to specialise in foreign television news. In 1989 he became Foreign Editor at the start-up private channel TV3 New Zealand. After some years he became the Foreign Editor at Television New Zealand where he worked until he retired.
Comments
4 responses to “MAX HAYTON. Jacinda Ardern leads a nation in grief.”
Regardless of which side of the political fence one sits, it is clear Jacinda Adhern’s political and humanitarian response to the Christchurch massacre touched on some key human values that all individuals cherish, regardless of race, religion or age: individual respect, care, sanctity, fairness, loyalty, inclusion and a shared identity. Unfortunately, the social paternalism of the utilitarian movement that has taken hold in the developed world, including Australia, since the 1980s has been trying to replace these communitarian values by detaching morality from our instinctive values. The fact that a small, developed country in the South West Pacific still holds many of these communitarian values and is able to demonstrate publicly that humanity’s instinctive values remain powerful in uniting nations and their people, even in times of utter devastation, gives us a glimmer of hope that western, liberal democracies need not succumb to the forces of nationalism, alienation, racism and division.
Jacinda Ardern is truly the silver lining to a very dark cloud. “They are us.” and “We are one.” It doesn’t get much better or more inclusive than that. And she has moved to get assault weapons and large capacity magazines off the shelves.
But politics is the art of the possible, and for Ardern to get NZ out of Five Eyes might be not possible.
The comparison with our own Julia Gillard is inevitable, but Julia was in many ways the architect of her own fall. She moved prematurely to seize the top spot. Had she waited until after the coming election, her road would have been so much easier.
Effective and lasting political change is a long game. Ask the Chinese.
Quote from the article
“Out of the deepest of tragedies, at least one positive element as emerged as Ardern is recognised around the world for her deep resources of leadership and public service and as a role model for, and champion of, peace and harmony at the highest level.”
If that is the case, let her go just one step further.
Her foreign policy reveals that New Zealand has signed up for the criminal madness we witnessed on the streets of Christchurch last week. New Zealand’s global position, whether the PM understands it or not…. is clearly Islamophobia.
New Zealand is a full time member of the US ‘War on Terror’, a carefully planned war, planned over a decade ago and which has mercilessly ruined Afghanistan and Iraq and has continued into Libya, Syria and Yemen. All Muslim countries. Add these to the list of the confirmed cases of the uncontrolled CIA and its globe-spanning campaign of coups……..
Iran (1953); Guatemala (1954); Congo (1960); Dominican Republic (1961); South Vietnam (1963) Brazil (1964); Chile (1973).
It is clear then that New Zealand and then Australia, the full time US foreign policy puppet, are guilty of genocide within the world of Muslims, under daily US direction since 2001. 18 long years and all designed to restructure the Middle East for their Middle East partner in crime, Israel, now sporting 400 nuclear warheads and aiming for ownership of all lands “from the Euphrates to the Nile”. ERETZ ISRAEL, no less.
Again, all Muslim countries.
The admirable Jacinda Ardern should remember that when she next reviews her foreign policy.
She has a chance to change. Far too late for Australia, I’m afraid.
Jacinda Adern is truly admirable. We had a similar Prime Minister here, but we had to watch as she was slowly crucified.