Honouring our martyrs 5 years on

Lest we forget.

Exactly five years ago on this day, the unthinkable happened. A twisted terrorist, blinded by an agenda of hate, underpinned by white supremacy and islamophobia, carried out an attack that devastated the entire country. My memory of the day was a fairly busy Friday, with back to back meetings. Didn’t manage to grab lunch. Went to Friday prayers, and got on a work call right away after leaving the mosque, ignoring all push notifications on my phone. Later that afternoon, as I was wrapping up my final meeting for the day, Thivy Ruthra walked by and said to me “Did you see what’s happening in Christchurch?”. My first instinct was to call my dear friend Atta to check on him. No response. As the next few hours unfolded, the fate of my friend became uncertain, but the scale of the tragedy became more certain.

The outpouring of love and support for our Muslim community in Christchurch was evident, and they are grateful for it. But as the days went by and life returned to normal, a lot of us seem to have gotten on. I get the privilege of sitting among various senior leaders in different industries all around the country, and it is not uncommon for me to hear people blame Australia for exporting its racist to us. There is a rejection of the notion that we as a nation have harboured a racist who could commit such a terrible act of terror on an entire community. Well, it's time to face the truth.

I also get the privilege now, as part of my Datacom Foundation role, to be connected to our Muslim community in Christchurch. I can tell you that this community, including those who were directly affected by March 15 through loss or injury, continue to experience racism in their daily lives. They have stories to tell. It’s not exclusive to Christchurch either. Five years on after New Zealand’s Darkest Day, racism and islamophobia is making a big come back, helped by a narcissistic zionist agenda that has weaved itself into the business world, threatening many people economically for simply speaking out (i.e. you could lose your job, your investor will turn away from you, or your customer may turn away from you). Yes, this happens here in New Zealand, and it could be happening to people in your network and you're not even aware. We have seemingly created the climate for it, whether we directly acknowledge it or not. Politicians are only a reflection of our own society in a democracy, so we cannot blame them. Change starts within every one of us.

So, on this day, my challenge to myself and every one of us - because we all hold prejudices and biases - is to ask ourselves, have we done better to ensure a March 15 never repeats itself? Have we done enough ourselves to better understand others and their perspectives and world views? Have we done enough to ensure our families are experiencing life through the lens of others? How are we being in service of others? How are we ensuring our narratives are not ones of supremacy, but of compassion?

We owe it to Atta and the 50 other martyrs from our darkest day. We owe it to all of those who have to live with life long consequences of their bullet injuries on March 15. We owe it to everyone who was present at Al-Noor and Linwood mosques on those days, and had to experience this traumatic horror. And we owe it to ourselves as a nation to set a different standard to the rest of the world, and to pave our own unique path in weaving care for people and land with business.

Views above are my own and do not represent the organisations I’m part of. Much Aroha to our March 15 whanau today. May Allah reunite us with our martyrs in Jannah ???? A special shout out to my dear friend Maha G. who has dedicated her life over the past 5 years to supporting the families affected by this tragedy. You continue to be an inspiration for me and many others.

Husain