By George
As you must be painfully aware, there have been two major terrorist attacks over the last two months. One in New Zealand and the other in Sri Lanka. You received international acclaim for the way you responded to the attack in New Zealand. And so you should have, considering your absolute immersion into the role as a genuinely grieving supporter of the Muslim community. So much so you dressed as a Muslim and invited their religious leaders to pray their Islamic prayers in the New Zealand House of Parliament and had this prayer simultaneously broadcast throughout our national broadcasting network.
You of course, would not have endorsed this prayer without knowing that the last two lines of the prayer are ?Allah is most great, there is none worthy of being worshipped except Allah?. So as a Christian country, why were we subjected to this Islamic pronouncement with your blessing?
You must be aware that there are some who viewed your response to this terrorist attack as somewhat over the top. This could have been your naivety as you felt it was important for you to be seen doing the right thing. It wasn’t long before the terrorist attack itself became secondary news and your personal response became the headline news both locally and internationally. Which is sad really. Though one might be forgiven for thinking you had no control over that.
Your substantial Muslim focused response has cast an unease amongst Christian New Zealanders but like most Christians, they kept their silences for the better good. As a Christian community, they showed a considerable tolerance towards your extravagant endorsement of the Muslim faith.
Whilst I agree the Muslim community is one of us, so is the Christian community. Over the last year, thousands of Christians worldwide have been victims of terrorism, the vast majority by Islamic extremists. This has continued in Sri Lanka where three Christian Churches were bombed killing hundreds of Christian worshipers. Your only response to this was a rather short and formal condemnation of this attack.
You referred to the dead as worshippers, not Christian worshippers. This is in stark contrast to your response to the New Zealand tragedy where you were at pains to identify the worshippers as Muslim, and your entire response was to promote and support their Islamic doctrine. I understand your current response could not be as extreme as it had to be in your own country but just a small acknowledgement of the fact that the victims in Sri Lanka were Christians would have been welcome.
There are members of your Coalition government who have been on a relentless crusade condemning ?white separatists?, their emphasis very much being on the ?white.” There appears to be a deafening silence by these parliamentarians and yourself to apply equal condemnation of terrorists of colour.
All acts of terrorism are evil. So why does one?s ethnicity become the point of difference? The inconsistency of your administration has not gone unnoticed by many New Zealanders.