As a New Zealand Resident I wish to express my deepest condolences to the bereaved families of the Christchurch terror attack victims - our nation is in mourning for your loss. As a practicing Buddhist also, I offer my solidarity with the Christchurch Muslim community in this time of tragedy, and my support for Muslims throughout New Zealand generally. Like all of us, I am outraged by the attack and unequivocally condemn it and the motivations of its perpetrators. We are all one people, regardless of our colour, culture, faith and practice. [please do not upvote/Like this post, but rather post to the thread yourself as you feel able, thank you]
I never imagined we would know this pain here. I am torn between “how dare they” and just shock. We will be supporting our local Muslim community as we can.
Hate and Ignorance are illnesses we all must fight against. All my condolences to the victims and their families.
As far as we know, at this time, no New Zealand wargamers of any system have been directly harmed in the attacks.
Horrific and disgusting is what it is. Solidarity with our NZ and Muslim friends, we know that NZ rejects this hate thoroughly.
An unfortunate phrase for the situation, I'm afraid. Everyone should say it loud and clear. These acts are abhorrent. *I'm not attacking you in any way. I meant to write a post in agreement and then thought about the phrasing a bit more as I was writing it and decided to write this instead.
It's funny you say this. I've been experiencing this unfold from several different lenses. The australian lens, the muslim community lens and the Bangladeshi community lens (which has been absurdly focused on their cricket team dodging the attack and not enough on the victims of the attack IMO). Back to your comment though: I've been following closely what one particular Islamic community leader in Australia has been saying as I think he's an excellent communicator. He's been part of an 'end the hate' campaign that's trying to 'out' people on the internet that are openly engaging in vile commentary. The motives are anyone's guess but having a genuine hatred for Islamic people or immigrants is IMO a fair summary of these folks. These kinds of comments I think further emphasises why there is the need to clearly say that these acts of terror are abhorrent. All acts of terror are abhorrent. All sacrifice of innocent life should be repulsive. The us vs them attitude classless humans such as the above harbour just creates an ongoing cycle of tit-for-tat. I see the islamic community talking about the ongoing war vs muslims since 9/11. I'm sure for hard-right muslims, they see 9/11 as being more tit-for-tat for the gulf war or the sanctions or god knows whats. This cycle of us vs them has been going on for a LOT longer than 9/11 and it just further entrenches the likelihood of the cycle continuing. I'm proud of the Islamic communities collective reaction to this attack as well as mainstream-western media/communities response. The cycle will not break today but at least the outpouring of love and understanding makes me feel that there's a possibility the cycle will one day break. Because, it doesn't matter of its Muslims or Christians dying, any loss of human life is abhorrent. And we should all make that very clear :) Scientologists on the other hand... can we classify them as something other than people? Tom Cruise is his own kind of species right?
I guess that's why I decided to actually say it after all, despite the fact that I believe it is self evident these acts are evil.
As with @Sabin76, I just want to make it clear I wasn't having a dig at you. It was just interesting how relevant the phrasing you use was to the problem I was trying to describe is all. Thank you for your clear condemnation :)
Here in New Zealand we've already had one person brought up on charges for supporting the attack online. Australia has done the same. Hopefully they will be the first of many. And hopefully our security forces will follow the online trail the terrorist left to many other like minded threats.
Deepest and most sincere condolences. No word are strong enough to express how horrible these actions are. Maybe education, demonstration of love and mutual respect despite differences and disagreements ... Peace and love together guys.
Do we want a separate thread for Sri Lanka or can this be the atrocity condolences general thread from now on?
Considering someone is blaming the Sri Lanka attacks as being 'revenge' for Christchurch, it's perfectly appropriate to discuss here. I really wish I was unable to see some of the logic those ... ... people** use. Makes me physically ill. Makes me want to listen to my dad and turn the entire Middle East into a glass, self-lighting parking lot, and that means killing a lot of innocents, which makes me more ill. ** Using the word 'people' very, very loosely. Because anyone who would deliberately kill children is a monster of the highest order and needs to be put down like the rabid dog they are.