Walking past the flower tribute wall at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens in memory of the 50 people killed and others injured in Friday’s attack on two mosques, Mr Manji – who is the most visible Christchurch politician, local or parliamentary, behind Mayor Lianne Dalziel – looks tired and admits to having had little sleep since the shootings.
“If you’d asked me on Thursday, I’d have said New Zealand’s a pretty peace-loving, tolerant open society, but there are some groups we’ve got to keep an eye on, and the alt-right is one of them.”
Described by one source as “the grey eminence” behind many council decisions, Mr Manji is trying to grapple with the changed global environment and changes in social media landscape that have given rise to murderers such as shooter Brenton Tarrant.
“The fact he’s an Australian doesn’t give any comfort really. You could say that he’s a global import really because his make-up – where he’s travelled and who he has associated with … is global. It’s very similar to Anders Breivik”, the Norwegian terrorist who shot dead 69 people at a Workers Youth League summer camp on Utoya Island in 2011.
While not claiming to have all the answers, Mr Manji, who migrated to New Zealand from England in 2002 to raise a family, said a global killer such as Tarrant didn’t come from nowhere, and global economic management has had a role to play.
“We’ve had 30 years of post-financial deregulation – you can call it neo-liberalism, but it’s actually financial deregulation – which has driven global markets and global changes, globalisation. It comes off the wheels because it’s hit its natural course.
“We know there’s a pile of debt sitting out there that needs to be dealt with at some point and they keep kicking the can down the road. I mean ECB, the nonsense in Europe, in China, Japan’s already been through it. But this is actually a time to say: ‘what next?’
“We have some some economic isolation issues and you see it in the United States and Europe where certain communities have been left behind because they haven’t benefited from globalisation.”
Muslims have been here since the 1850s
Mr Manji also highlighted an aspect with the Christchurch’s Muslim population, that many international media outlets have struggled to understand: its integration and diversity.
“The thing with the Muslim community is that, in a way, it’s a very diverse community. And they probably wouldn’t see themselves as ‘the Muslim community’. They are from all over the place and they’ll all have different approaches to their daily life and culture and practice, but one place they do come to congregate is the mosque – just like people congregate in the church or in a synagogue. And you recite all the same prayers that everyone around the world says.
“The community takes it as a hit on everyone, because these people are actually just part of the normal community. I think we have to be careful not to say ‘the Muslim community’ like its something that lives over there.”
Mr Manji credits New Zealand’s immigration policy for this multicultural success
“There’s never been a mass migration from a particular country. I mean, Australia had a lot of Greeks come in after the civil war, a lot of Lebanese came in after the civil war. We haven’t had that.”
Mr Manji also points out that Muslims have been in Christchurch since the 1850s, citing the old Christchurch suburb of Cashmere with streets named after several Indian provinces, both Hindu and Muslim. He says that communication and understanding will be crucial to the city recovering from this terrible disaster.
“We just need to have an open conversation because it is a fact that people fear what they do not know.”
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