March 23rd

It's been a week.

Coming up to the day was a mix of trepidation and a surreal sense of repetition. My day started exactly as it did on the fifteenth of March: a two hour shift at Papanui, a two hour lunch break, and then five hours at Bishopdale. 

All the morning I was thinking: "it hadn't happened yet, it hadn't happened yet" and once I was at Bishopdale I kept glancing at the clock, trying to match the times with the corresponding events of the week before.

At half-past one we all stopped to watch the live broadcast of a two minute silence and the Islamic call to prayer in Hagley Park, which was attended by thousands of people, including some of the survivors that have recently been released from hospital. 

On Thursday night I visited the flower wall at the Botanical Gardens, which was as uplifting as it was sad. You could smell the scent of the flowers and candlewax from metres away, and it's stunning just how long and beautiful it is: there are sculptures and balloons, cards and soft toys, paper chains and hundreds of messages. I added an abridged version of Maya Angelou's "Amazing Peace" to the memorial; a poem that got me through some hard times in the past.

I ran into two girls I used to babysit, now both young adults, and was moved by two extremes of tribute: a biker gang that loudly revved their engines as they went down the street, and a capella group that had everyone in tears with "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?"

People had brought their children and their dogs. Strangers and friends were hugging each other as they cried or prayed, and the media reporters were attentive but respectful. Candles were lit, and emergency workers were standing by. It was very peaceful.

Jacinda Ardern has been incredible. Not only has she been in Christchurch to address crowds, comfort the Muslim community and speak at schools, but she moved quickly to fast-track visas for families wanting to attend funerals and provide immediate financial assistance for victims and their families.

Her decision to wear a hijab inspired many non-Muslim women to wear similar headscarves on Friday in solidarity - and put aside any concern about cultural appropriation, as this was condoned by the Muslim community to the point where they were actively handing out hijabs for women to wear. 

Jacinda has also announced a nation wide gun-ban on semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles, a move that is (to their credit) supported by National and every other opposition party. Even Judith Collins is behaving herself, which is frankly a miracle. ACT is the only holdout, a party so irrelevant that I've no doubt they've dissented for the sole purpose of getting attention. 

Finally, it would appear news outlets across the country have taken her advice not to name or depict the shooter in any way. I've yet to see his name in print, and all photos have blurred out his face. The opposite of terror is utter disregard for the terrorist, and that’s the path we’re taking.

In the simple words of a member of the Muslim community: "we love her." We do, and I will always be proud that I voted for her. 

***

There's been other bad news on a personal level: a close work-colleague was taking a long-overdue holiday in a campervan when she and her husband came across an accident in which a motorcyclist hit a car, leading to at least one fatality and a fire. I'm not exactly sure of the details, but her husband had to drag someone from the car and she's not handling it well. 

On top of worrying about the fact her boys were alone in Christchurch the day of the attack, she's obviously seen a horrific accident and is grappling to cope with it. My colleagues and I sent her a care package filled with food and money, but it's another layer of stress and grief on top of everything else. 

It's not all dignity and strength, and I think it's important to point out the ugly side of things.

Two people came into the library on Friday whose conduct was disgraceful, first an elderly woman who complained about how much money the whole thing was costing the taxpayer (even going so far as to list the costs, from the police presence, to the gun buy-back, to the fuel costs) and then an old man who started moaning about how tired he was of watching the news coverage, and then (as random as it sounds) looked me in the eye and said: "There are one million Muslims living in America. Isn't that scary?"  

Reader, I have never been so close to hitting another human being in my life. It's probably down to the fact another colleague was on-hand to mediate his comments that I still have a job - though it didn't stop him from rambling on about how Christians were massacred by Muslims in Indonesia at some unspecified point, and moaning about how the Canterbury Crusaders were going to change their name.

Disgusting creature. 

There's also Brian Tamaki, our homegrown fundamentalist nutjob, who complained about the Islamic Call to Prayer and said in an interview that he was "gracious" for having waited a whole week before stating that Christians in Islamic countries would be put to death for practicing their faith.

Like the old man, there's this bizarre narcissism to such complaints - a genuine resentment that a group they don't belong to is suddenly in the spotlight. They want the sympathy and attention of victims without any of the suffering that goes with it, voicing the usual "but what about US?" mantra. 

I am saying this not just to vent my rage, but because it's important not to put a shiny gloss on things. There were hateful people before this happened, and there are hateful people afterwards. They need to be fought every step of the way. 

So I am angry; angry deep down in my soul, but I'm also trying to see the goodness that has arisen from this dark time. 

There is human courage, from the policemen who took down the shooter and stopped him from reaching his third target by ramming his car at considerable risk to themselves, to Abdul Aziz, who charged the gunman at the Linwood Mosque and spooked him into retreating. There are moments of grace, from the fact that there were more policemen in the city due to a training exercise (which included the aforementioned men that rammed the shooter) to the road-worker who sat with one of the dying so he wouldn't be alone.

There's the contractor who offered to replace the carpets of the mosques for free, the three teenagers who organized today's March for Love, the policewoman who guarded the cemetery in a hijab, the way gangs such as the Mongrol Mob have offered to protect places of worship, and the singing group of pre-teens that appeared on the news last night. They performed a song they had planned to sing at a festival that was cancelled in the wake of the attack, and at the end the young Muslim girl in their centre broke down in tears. The rest silently moved closer to wrap their arms around her. I'll remember that for a long time.

The shooter sought to divide us and has failed utterly. We will consign him to oblivion - unmissed, unmourned, completely disregarded, and we will carry on, as we did after the earthquakes, to find a new strength and understanding with each other. The racists and xenophobes in our midst will succumb to time and irrelevance, and they too will be forgotten.

To quote from our national anthem: "in the bonds of love we meet, hear our voices we entreat, God defend our free land."