New Zealand Mosque Atrocity

[Alan Burns]

This dreadful atrocity has made headline news for several days, and rightly so.  Our local church congregation has been praying for the unfortunate victims of these evil terrorists.

Back in January this year, a similar terrorist attack was made by bombing a Christian cathedral in the Philippines, killing 20 people who were attending the church service.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-47018747

But this did not get much publicity, and many people I have mentioned it to were unaware of it.  At the time I could not understand why such an atrocity did not get wide publicity such as we have seen for the recent New Zealand attack.

[Roses]

I went to a very moving and inspiring event at Regent’s Park Mosque today that was introduced as an event for people of all faiths and none to show solidarity against the extremism and terrorist act carried out in Christchurch. Some of the speakers there included the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the Home Secretary Sajid Javid, founding Chair of City Sikhs, Jasvir Singh, a female Muslim scholar whose name I'm afraid don't recall.  I briefly spoke to Laura Janner-Klausner, Senior Rabbi of the Reform Movement, as we shared a lift going down to leave the event.

All the speakers mentioned that an attack on one community was an attack on all communities as there is no “us” and “them”. One of the main organisers of the event spoke very warmly about the Orthodox Chief Rabbi’s support and enthusiasm for the event at Regent's Park mosque, highlighting that the Chief Rabbi was the first high profile leader to commit to attending the event, which made it easier for other high profile speakers to come on board. The Chief Rabbi spoke very powerfully about how we should endeavour to be measured in our speech so that we celebrate that which we have in common rather than focus on our differences. All the speakers highlighted how casually divisive speech by mainstream society can embolden extremists.

The Archbishop of Canterbury also gave a moving speech about how upset and sorry he was for what had happened in New Zealand and how we must all pledge to act to change the society that allows such hatred of any community to exist and grow. He pledged that as the Church of England runs thousands of schools and teaches over a million children, at the next meeting of the Bishops they will discuss what they can put into action in their schools to improve their Good Neighbour initiative to guide pupils away from speech and thought that allows divisiveness to flourish in society.

I think all of those speakers talking about the harm done by the words we use has caused me to have a re-think about the importance of moderating speech and promoting political correctness.

Sadiq Khan said that on Friday, while he was attending Friday prayers in East London mosque, there was a touching call from the Bishop of London to check that the congregation in the mosque was ok, following the mass shooting in NZ. He said, similarly in mosques all over London, Rabbis and Christian clergy were calling and checking with mosques if they were ok and to assure them of their support. I don’t know if any of this will get reported by the national media but the solidarity of non-Muslims with the Muslim community was wonderful and hope like-minded Muslims will be equally vocal in their solidarity with other communities, including the Hindu community, or the Jewish community when they encounter anti-Semitic threats and violence, or the Christian community when they face persecution e.g. in Pakistan and Egypt.

I am glad that clergy of others faiths are encouraging people to be supportive of Muslims after the terrible racist attack in NZ.

[jeremyp]

At the time I could not understand why such an atrocity did not get wide publicity such as we have seen for the recent New Zealand attack.

That implies you do understand now. What is the reason? My thought is that the Philippines is not a nation of Western Europeans.

[Nearly Sane]

Moderator Please note I've split the discussion of the Sri Lanka bombings into its own thread.