The nightmare of the New Zealand Christchurch massacre will be in the spotlight of the global community for some time. In short - the terrorist broke into the mosque and opened fire on the praying people taking advantage of commotion, got out and repeated the atrocity in another mosque. 50 people died, as many were injured.
Nonhuman - 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant - on the eve of the massacre shared on the Internet his radical ultra-right views. Perhaps, he was not alone. This is being established by the investigators who are trying to understand whether the inscriptions in different languages on the assault rifles of the murderer lead to other countries where these languages are spoken by other possible terrorists.
Most likely, they do not lead to anyone but have a certain symbolic character. The names of people who distinguished themselves in wars against Muslims (such as the Georgian King David the Builder) or nationalists, racists, fascists, who distinguished themselves these days, were encrypted on the rifles’ magazines. To mention their names means desecrate the air or soil paper. So, Georgia that got excited about being mentioned in the hot news can calm down. Or rather, the country’s talkative officials, who have fallen into an ecstatic state because of the flickering opportunity to be at least sideways involved in the world events.
Turkey was one of the first to react to the tragedy. The Chairman of the Grand National Assembly (Parliament) of Turkey, Mustafa Shentop, and representatives of five parliamentary factions made a joint statement, which, along with the traditional condemnation of the terrorist attack and the usual words in such cases, contains a curious conclusion: the incident is the result of racism, based on anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant rhetoric, unfortunately, supported by some politicians and the media.
On the same day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoned New Zealand Governor-General Patsy Reddy, expressed condolences and offered assistance in investigating the crime. The Vice-President and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey left for Wellington. And this is despite the fact that the Turkish ambassador to New Zealand said that there are no Turkish citizens or ethnic Turks among the victims.
Many other countries have responded to the attack accordingly. Especially Muslim ones. In particular, Pakistan. But the activity of Turkey is unprecedented. Recep Tayyip Erdogan shows himself not only as a strong local leader but seems to be positioning himself as the brightest and mighty leader of the entire Muslim world due to relative passivity of the other prominent representatives. What happened in New Zealand, however blasphemous it might sound, was an opportunity for the leader who challenged and did not bend under US President Donald Trump, to once again demonstrate extraordinary strength of mind. Undoubtedly, astute Erdogan understands this and, probably, new strong statements that will attract the attention of the world community will be heard from Ankara these days.
We cannot avoid the banal, even vulgar question, who needed to kill innocent praying people. For the answer - maniac, racist, religious fanatic, etc - C minus. It is enough to look at the political map of the world and name the calmest region never mentioned in the news. Therefore, maybe, it is worth considering the tragedy in Christchurch as an attempt to provoke tensions in this quiet region of the Earth, to throw a spark or light from other regions where the fire is already raging or is ready to flare up.
The attack on a mosque in New Zealand literally shocked neighboring Australia. It borders with Indonesia - a country of almost 300 million people, 90% of whom are Muslims, with a bouquet of ethnic and religious contradictions, which are hardly kept under relative control by the authorities. And it was the natives of Indonesia who were basically the victims of attacks in New Zealand mosques.
The difficult neighborhood with Indonesia for Australia and New Zealand was a risk factor that prompted a search for a military alliance with a third party. The US could not stay away. In the Canberra and Wellington doctrines, it is reflected in the form of an indication that the guarantees of national security against the threat of a possible armed conflict, among other things, are in the US military alliance. Washington is increasing its presence in all the regions of the world. This is a strategy. Moreover, in relations with Europe, for example, this presence is becoming more and more expensive… And in Oceania, it was too calm to talk about the need to strengthen presence.
My close friend from the institute who emigrated to Australia in the mid-1990s complained that time stands in Melbourne, there are no events, absolute calm. After the turbulent post-Soviet period, it was painfully unusual for him. He said that in the five years of life in Australia, the most extraordinary events in the news were 2-3 cases of shark attacks on swimmers, 1-2 rescues of whales that flew ashore, public disputes - is it acceptable to kill kangaroos getting quite annoying to farmers, as well as several cases of violent mental disorder among the aboriginal population who overdid with some kind of narcotic mushrooms. After a few more years, with a laugh, he told how Melbourne and Sydney were completely paralyzed because of student unrest, which in fact turned out to be not that critical - just a couple of shop and cafes windows were broken…
But all this may be in the past. In Australia and New Zealand, it was calm. Too calm and quiet. For today's world order and its rulers, this seems to be a big disarray.
