Most New Zealanders are appalled by the actions of these far right terrorists.
What is the "far right"? I don't want to google it and end up on some FBI list or even worse, a list of those that support them. But what are they "right" of? Are they white people that think they are better and smarter than everybody else and afraid of losing their superiority? That's not "right" of anything thing, that's radical racism.
But what about the lessor degrees of racism and prejudice? In the U.S. every group of people has their bad and radical side, and we're all scared of those other groups... and lump all together as something different and bad. Mexicans have their gangs. Blacks have gangs. Even Asians and Whites have their gangs. As a kid, nobody from our neighborhood went into someone else's "territory". And how about the adults? Do people grow out of their fears and prejudices? No, adults are just as bad, just on a larger scale.
In America, we were told we were the "good" guys. What we do is what's right. So when we sent in our planes and ships to blow people up, we were trying to stop evil. We were trying to stop the people from over there. The people that were a different color, a different religion, that had different politics and wanted to change our way of life. But how "good" were we? Sometimes, not so good.
The political games still go on. White collar criminals still try and lie and cheat their way into wealth and power. There are so many ways that the dominate group can manipulate the world to keep themselves at the top. But the world is changing. The dominate group's power is fading. What is their plan? To still demonize the other people.
But here in the U.S. it's all people of color. We are told all brown people coming from Central America are evil and trying to invade America, bringing their drugs and gangs. We are told that Muslims want to bring Sharia Law into our country and take over. This attitude starts at the top and trickles down to some young kid with a automatic weapon that thinks he's doing what's right... killing innocent people that he believes are evil. But, he's not right and I wouldn't call him being far to the right, but far wrong. Good luck to you Adrian trying to bring peace and understanding to the people in your city.
Thank you for sharing your experiences in the USA.
Here is a link that appears safe and informative about the far right.
Far-right politics - Wikipedia
It can have a variety of connotations and whether or not its useful will become apparent. The phrase appears to have arisen out of associations with Nazi type ideologies that were racist, nationalistic and upheld political authoritarianism.
The perpetrator posted on social media a 16,000 page manifesto or document. I haven't read, don't intend to read it and would advice others not to read it. Why? Because it is hate speech. It is illegal in my country to disseminate such a document. If you or anyone else comes across it on social media I would advise you delete it.
Racism in this scenario may involve associations with the white supremacist movement. Nationalism may be a belief in the superiority of one's own country above others. In an era of the increasing necessity of international cooperation it could be promoting one's national interests to the deteriment of others or even the world.
From what we know, it appears the main perpetrator was motivated by both racism and a hatred of Islam. Often, but not always, the two can go together.
That sounds like a community that is divided, not united? What about schools and the workplace? Is there not more intermingling of cultures and races? How about marriage? Is there not much in the way of marriage between peoples of different races and cultures? How about with friendships? We're talking about a country that had an African-American president not so long ago...not for just one term but for two! How about your senate and congress? There must be different races represented.
What I read from your post is that racial integration continues to be a challenge in America and racism continues to be a dominant issue. So if there is segregation (albeit voluntarily) there will be more cultural misunderstandings. There will more misinformation and distortions in regards perception of religions or worldviews other than our own.
Race relations in America is clearly a huge topic and well beyond my area of expertise.
Things have changed greatly since I was a kid. In the fifties, if a Black family moved in to the neighborhood, the white families started moving out. There were zero Black kids at the High School I went to, and that was in the late sixties. As you I'm sure know, at the start of the Rock and Roll Era, white singers covered songs that were performed and written by Blacks. But there was prejudices against Whites too. I was raised in LA. We thought we were better than whites from NY. And definitely better than the Whites from the South.
But I don't remember anybody worrying or caring about Muslims. Little did the average American know what was about to happen in the late 70's. In fact it seemed overnight that the Soviet Union was our enemy, then they dissolved and out of no where came Iran, Iraq, Libya and the others. We were led to believe all of them were evil and backwards, mostly because of their religion. In college is the first time I heard the other side of the story, that we wanted their oil and put in leaders that played along with us.
But money and politics play their part, and I think were at the beginning of creating a negative image of people that America saw as enemies. But religion did too. I never heard any religious person say any positive about Islam until I met Baha'is. I heard many Christian preachers say how Islam is a false religion and of the devil. That they were going to attempt to destroy Israel, then Jesus would intervene and destroy them. However, we heard that they felt the same way about us... that America was the Great Satan.
Yes, America is getting much more integrated and accepting of others. But, there's still way too much distrust and anger toward people that are different... and that's with each other here in America. Sure, we had a Black President, but unarmed Blacks are getting shot by police. So now what about Muslims? Our latest President had a solution. He tried to ban all Muslims from entering America. But, it's not only Muslims. He believes that people are invading our country from across the southern border. While kids in the inner cities are shooting each other and mass shooters have shot up schools, movie theaters, and music concerts. So things aren't that good. We seem to be afraid of ourselves too. And then we wonder, what went wrong?
You know what is wrong, pretty much everything. And that is the strongest and most positive thing about the Baha'i Faith. Differences in the color of skin, cultural differences and religion, the differences between the very rich and the very poor... and maybe, the going along with the status quo by the middle class. Because, for them, things aren't that bad. For a long time, things weren't that bad for the average American, the average White American. But things are changing fast. The world demands equality, fairness, and justice. But in the fight, I'm afraid there will always be those few that think they need to use violence. And, unfortunately, they can come from any color or ideology.
