Unusually I was awake in the middle of the night waiting for an urgent medical delivery when the news of the massacre in New Zealand broke. A far-right fascist, one who in his absurdly long "manifesto" admires Oswald Mosley the British Blackshirt leader was responsible for killing 49 people in two Mosques. A well planned attack that caught the authorities by surprise.
New Zealand much like Norway was very much on the edges of world politics and both have suffered from attacks by politically motivated bigots wanting to save what they refer to as the white race. Anders Brevik attacked Norwegian society with a bomb in Oslo and mass shooting at a children's camp where young political activists were meeting.
Brenton Tarrant decided to kill Muslims and published over seventy pages of hateful bilge to justify his actions. He apparently wants to start a race war as did Brevik. At the time of writing it is not clear if Tarrant acted alone.
Our sympathy has to be with the victims of this atrocity. There is never any excuse to kill anyone, Muslim, Jew, Christian or anyone else. If your beliefs, religious or political allow for this then there is something seriously wrong with the original idea.
In this modern age we can see at almost first hand the continuing violence around the world based on intolerance. There are differences between us, there are difficult problems to resolve. I'm no pacifist sometimes like against Hitler or ISIS there is a time to fight but within our democracies we must seek to learn tolerance.
Human rights are for all whether men or women, straight or gay, Muslim or Jew all must learn to live in a society where people are able to freely live their lives regardless of who they are or what they believe.
There should be no violence in politics. I'm sure most people think that but there never has been any new kinder politics anywhere.
And none seem in sight any time soon. Whilst we weep for the latest victims there are those preparing to act against us waiting for their chance.
Don't give into the men and women of violence. Ever.
We have a world to win.
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