Muslim Deaths Cynically Used to Enforce State Dogma

By KR Bolton
2700 words.

I have written previously on both Tarrant, the murderer of 51 Muslims at Christchurch, and the motive behind the push for a ‘hate speech’ law to augment the draconian laws that have been in force since 1971 (starting with the Race Relations Act). Those who have long been demanding the extensions of the laws have utilised the Tarrant atrocity to justify their position. While there might be glib allusions to maintaining ‘free speech’, when one looks into the documents and submissions of those promoting the extension of these laws, it is plain that they define ‘free speech’ the way the New Left icon Professor Herbert Marcuse defined it in his 1965 essay Repressive Tolerance, which advocated free speech so long as it accords with the dogma of Marcuse and his Far Left followers. Hence the familiar slogan ‘no platform for fascists’, by those who claim to be defending the uttermost bounds of ‘freedom’; while a ‘Fascist’ is defined as anyone who dissents from left-liberal-globalist orthodoxy, as seen by the shutting down of the lectures for Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux for example.

The requirement of new legislation is to silence any dissent, regardless of platitudes about ‘free speech’ and the Bill of Rights. To justify repression, dissent must be criminalised and demonised. Tarrant certainly assisted with this, more so than any of the odd claims of Dr Paul Spoonley or the lacklustre report by the H R Commission on ‘hate crimes’ in New Zealand, It Happened Here.

What is apparent from the Tarrant murders, but which is entirely lacking in any state, media or ‘academic’ assessment is that

1. The motive of Tarrant did not come from the Right, ‘Far’ or otherwise; not at all. It came entirely, 100% from his reaction to ongoing terrorist actions by Wahhabists and Jihadists in Europe.

2. While hundreds of law abiding citizens were visited by police following the Tarrant murders (including this writer) and the media-most-stupid let loose in a barrage of hate and damned poor journalism against a perceived ‘Far Right’, including an Asatru group driven to extinction as the result of ‘hate speech’ by the media, the outcome of this witch-hunt was that no evidence of any ‘Far Right’ terrorism was found, nor any associations whatever with Tarrant. Regardless of this Prime Minster Ardern apologised to Muslims for the security focus having been on Muslim terrorism rather than on mythic ‘Far Right’ terrorists:

Nonetheless, security agencies had geared an ‘inappropriate concentration of resources’ toward detecting potential Islamist threats, compared with the dangers posed by white supremacists like Tarrant, the [800 page Royal Commission of Inquiry] report said.

(Jacinda Ardern apologizes for lapses in lead-up to NZ mosque attacks, Washington Post, 8 December 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-christchurch-attacks/2020/12/08/a5f4b074-38fc-11eb-aad9-8959227280c4_story.html)

So if the security services had focused attention on the ‘Far Right’, what would they have found? – nothing.

3. The year prior to the Tarrant atrocity, a Muslim youth planned a terrorist attack in Christchurch. He had been ‘radicalised online’. He planned to use the Wahhabist method overseas of a car and a knife to inflict deaths on the infidels. He was thwarted in the process by police before anyone was killed. A news report of the time reads:

A Kiwi teenager radicalised online planned to ram a car into a group of people in Christchurch and then stab them.

The teenager wrote a goodbye note to his mother, then started a violent incident, but has since told a psychologist when it began he ‘decided not to hurt anybody because he did not have the means to kill enough people’, Crown prosecutor Chris Lange told the Christchurch District Court at sentencing on Thursday. 

‘The reason no-one was hurt was that he did not have access to knives,’ Lange said. But there was significant premeditation, and hostility towards non-Muslims.

After his arrest, the youth told police he was angry and had ‘done it for Allah’. He had left school at age 15, become socially isolated, and converted to Islam. 

The court has adopted a rehabilitative approach to the teen’s sentencing, with Judge Stephen O’Driscoll releasing him on intensive supervision with a list of conditions and a warning that if he breaches the conditions or reoffends, he will likely be sent to prison.

Among the conditions – which will apply for two years while the judge monitors his progress – is counselling by a member of the local Muslim community.

The youth’s name is suppressed and the details of the offending cannot be published. He has admitted eight charges. People were frightened by his actions during the incident last year, and damage was done, but no-one was hurt before he was held until the police arrived.

…Pre-sentence reports indicated he had the potential to act more violently than what happened.

The president of the Federation of Islamic Associations, Hazim Arafeh, said from Christchurch that his organisation ‘completely condemned any violence towards any community and that will never change’.

The risk of young people not well informed about Islam becoming radicalised online would always be present and the federation fully co-operated with the authorities.

‘If you look at the statistics just about all of them are low lifes who have no family, no achievements and no qualifications. It’s easier to recruit people who are misinformed about Islam.’

If people wanted to know about the real Islam they could approach anyone at mosques around the country. 

The Minister responsible for intelligence services, Andrew Little, said there were ‘30 to 40 people of concern at any one time’ on the Security Intelligence Service’s ‘watch list’ of Islamic State sympathisers.

(David Clarkson, Kiwi teenager radicalised online planned mass killing in Christchurch ‘for Allah’, Stuff, 16 February, 2018, https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/101480988/kiwi-teenager-radicalised-online-planned-mass-killing-in-christchurch-for-allah)

A few things can be said about the above report:

1. The youth was ‘radicalised online’. Where was the frenetic posturing about shutting down ‘online’ Wahhabist sources?
2. Why no demands to legislate to control knives and cars, and ban certain models?
3. If the youth is being counselled by a Muslim, presumably in regard to ‘genuine’ Islam, what would be the state’s response if it was suggested that Tarrant receives counselling in regard to the ‘genuine’ Right; for example, the long tradition of alliances and common outlook that widely existed between Islam and the Right until breached by the pro-Israel neocons?
4. The Muslim community leader made it clear that the youth did not represent ‘genuine Islam’, and the youth’s actions were unequivocally condemned. Ditto the dissident Right in regard to ‘genuine Rightism’, yet the state, media, academia, H R Commission, ad nauseum, have not acknowledged repudiation of Tarrant from the Right.
5. What if the youth had succeeded in his plan, with the potential of killing and injuring dozens? Answer: Ms Ardern, Andrew Little, Golriz Ghahraman, along with the entire Green Party Caucus, the H R Commissioner, Patrick Gower, and sundry others would have been at pains – AT PAINS – to insist that such actions do not represent ‘true Islam’, that we must not blame ‘all Muslims’, etc. No such generosity is extended to the ‘Right’, including someone such as myself, visited by police, intruded on by media, who has never been anything except pro-Islam from a Traditionalist perspective.
6. Andrew Little stated that there were 30 to 40 Jihadists on a ‘watch-list. We are now told that the focus should instead have been on the ‘Far Right’, despite the witch-hunt in the wake of the Tarrant shootings finding nothing and nobody to merit any such surveillance. We are now told by Ardern that the Government was wrong to keep tabs on these Wahhabists, to the extent that she has apologised to Muslims for this. Now it seems resources will be redirected towards a new intelligence service to observe the elusive ‘Far Right threat’.
   
   

Defining Hate Speech

Yet any such law requires definitions sustainable in court, or at least with some semblance of legalese. The Human Rights Act already prohibits ‘hate speech’ under Sections 61 and 131. Providing a working definition has always been problematic. The HR Commission resorts to overseas definitions. The most extensive is from Canada:

The distinction between the expression of repugnant ideas and expression which exposes groups to hatred is crucial to understanding the proper application of hate speech prohibitions. Hate speech legislation is not aimed at discouraging repugnant or offensive ideas. It does not, for example, prohibit expression which debates the merits of reducing the rights of vulnerable groups in society. It only restricts the use of expression exposing them to hatred as a part of that debate. It does not target the ideas, but their mode of expression in public and the effect that this mode of expression may have at; and … An assessment of whether expression exposes a protected group to hatred must therefore include an evaluation of the likely effects of the expression on its audience. Would a reasonable person consider that the expression vilifying a protected group has the potential to lead to discrimination and other harmful effects? This assessment will depend largely on the context and circumstances of each case at.
(Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission v Whatcott [2013] SCC 11 at 492 [31], cited by H R Commission, Kōrero Whakamauāhara: Hate Speech: An overview of the current legal framework, December 2019, p. 4, https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/2915/7653/6167/Korero_Whakamauahara-_Hate_Speech_FINAL_13.12.2019.pdf)

The H R Commission assure us that any such laws will not be a limitation on legitimate rights of free speech and enquiry:

The term hate speech can be misleading because it is often used loosely and pejoratively to imply a moral breach and is directed at the speech or expression itself. However, hate speech laws are not intended to protect people from offence or to suppress ideas. They are targeted at the effect that the expression has on the minds of third parties. (Ibid.).

This is the most cynical doubletalk. Indeed in a footnote the HRC alludes to the case brought against James Keegstra, a mayor and long-time secondary school teacher in Canada, who was brought before the inquisition and became a pariah because of his dissident views. The H R Commission footnotes the Keegstra case, and in Orwellian manner negates the cynical humbug previously cited on how there must be a distinction between ‘hate speech’ and rights to dissent:

R v Keegstra [1990] 3 SCR 697: Essentially, there are two sorts of injury caused by hate propaganda. First, there is harm done to members of the target group. It is indisputable that the emotional damage caused by words may be of grave psychological and social consequence … a response of humiliation and degradation from an individual targeted by hate propaganda is to be expected. A person’s sense of human dignity and belonging to the community at large is closely linked to the concern and respect accorded the groups to which he or she belongs. The derision, hostility and abuse encouraged by hate propaganda … have a severely negative impact on the individual’s sense of self-worth and acceptance. This impact may cause target group members to take drastic measures in reaction, perhaps avoiding activities which bring them into contact with non-group members or adopting attitudes and postures directed towards blending in with the majority. Such consequences bear heavily in a nation that prides itself on tolerance and the fostering of human dignity through, among other things, respect for the many racial, religious and cultural groups in our society. A second harmful effect of hate propaganda … is its impact on society at large. It is thus not inconceivable that the active dissemination of hate propaganda can attract individuals to its cause, and in the process create serious discord between various cultural groups in society. (Ibid., p. 5).

The Keesgstra case is precisely the type that the H R Commission, the Government and sundry others want to impose here. It has all the ‘liberty’ implicit in ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’, enforced by Citizen Robespierre’s Committee on Public Safety, and indeed originates from the same doctrine as Jacobinism. All that is required is for some ideological opponent to claim distress and the onus to prove innocence will be on the accused party. As we know well enough by now, any expression of pro-European sentiment is regarded as ‘hate speech’. Maori activist Moana Jackson is cited:

Moana Jackson has pointed out that repetitive hatred cannot breed compassion and it carries a cost to those affected. Jackson points to the history of colonisation where free speech has been used to excuse and maintain privilege and the devaluing of indigenous values, language and rights. (Ibid., p. 6).

It has not taken the H R Commission far to renege on any platitudes about ‘free speech’ not being undermined by the proposed law. Any pro-European sentiment is regarded as neo-colonialism, hurtful, etc., while those such as Moana Jackson are given cart blanche to criticise the European heritage as maintaining privilege and devaluing Maori. This characterisation of European New Zealanders is itself insulting and hurtful and could be construed as inciting anti-Pakeha sentiment, but a level playing field is not the aim. Indeed, many might feel insulted and hurt that their pioneer forefathers coming from an epoch of capitalism and industrialisation, of the work house, rat-infested slums, cholera, child labour and other such delights of 19^th century Britain, are besmirched by such privileged Maori as Mr Jackson, and accused of being the beneficiaries of ‘privilege’ under an oligarchy that was no more loyal to their own race than any white-face now sitting in Parliament. Indeed, while the H R Commission, Ardern et al chant ‘inclusion’ and celebrate the diversity of Parliament, with its Maori, Pasifika and Asians, is there a single representative for the European New Zealander? Is there just ONE who speaks for the besmirched Pakeha?

The only consistency is anti-White bigotry. Anti-White sentiments are granted free reign on the pretext that they are expressing legitimate grievances. However, how would the proposed law operate if a Muslim expresses anti-Zionist sentiments, which are defined as synonymous with anti-Semitism? Will the practitioners of Asatru heathenism have rights under the new laws in regard to religious defamation, as was the case of media smears in the aftermath of the Tarrant shootings? (Andrea Vance, Stuff, 30 March 2019, https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111537465/group-interested-survival-ethnic-european-folk) What about the widespread anti-Catholic sentiments that are expressed online and elsewhere, or is Catholicism still too close to European tradition to be accorded rights under the law? Will hate speech laws be used against Muslims parents who object to their sons and daughters being taught the pervasive transgender programmes now in primary and secondary schools, or Polynesian Christian parents, or only White Christian parents?

The H R Commission struggles dialectically to balance the repression of ideas with the Bill of Rights which supposedly guarantees such rights, as in: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others’. The answer is that freedoms are not absolute, which indeed they are not. But please, spare us all the pontificating humbug. The aim is to suppress dissent; that is all. Nobody is arguing in favour of freedom to incite murder or vandalism. But such laws are already in place in regard to such incitement. The H R Commission concedes this, but it is not enough:

New Zealand does not have specific hate crime offences. However, hateful motivations are considered an aggravating factor in sentencing under the Sentencing Act 2002. Section 9(1) of the Act requires the courts to take into account the following factors in sentencing a convicted offender: (h) that the offender committed the offence partly or wholly because of hostility towards a group of persons who have an enduring common characteristic such as race, colour, nationality, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability; and (i) the hostility is because of the common characteristic; and (ii) the offender believed that the victim has that characteristic. (H R Commission report, op. cit., p. 7).

As the edifice of multiculturalism is inherently unstable, laws will necessarily become increasingly draconian. Scapegoats have been found on which to blame the failings, heretics will be identified, pilloried and prosecuted because, like all dogmas, the Holy Writ of Equality is not open to question, but remains sacrosanct.