{"id":13129,"date":"2019-03-15T09:47:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T15:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=13129"},"modified":"2019-03-15T09:47:49","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T15:47:49","slug":"in-which-no-i-am-not-a-new-zealander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2019\/03\/in-which-no-i-am-not-a-new-zealander.html","title":{"rendered":"In which, no, I am not a New Zealander"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

Remember when, back after the Charlie Hebdo attack, everyone changed their profile pictures and said, \u201cje\u00a0suis\u00a0Charlie\u201d?\u00a0 Well, except that it turned out that at least some portion of that everyone later started saying things like, \u201cwell, maybe the magazine shouldn\u2019t have been saying such mean things about Islam.\u201d\u00a0 And later on we ended up with debates over whether the French (and subsequently the Belgians) brought it all on themselves by not properly integrating Muslims into their societies and economies.<\/p>\n

This was, of course, followed by attacks in Belgium and London and San Bernardino and Orlando, plus attacks elsewhere in poorer countries that are culturally more distant from us.\u00a0 \u00a0 And now, with the Tree of Life Synagogue attack in October<\/a> and today\u2019s attack on a mosque in New Zealand<\/a>, we may or may not have something that perpetrators think is a counter-attack.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s horrendous.<\/p>\n

I went to bed last night after the first reports appeared online (readers: don\u2019t spend so much time on social media) and woke up with a headache, which, admittedly, probably isn\u2019t related, and just contributes to my lousy mood.\u00a0 And the news got worse in the morning, when total deaths appeared.<\/p>\n

But then someone shared a tweet by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as reported by Fox News<\/a>, tying this shooting to those in Charleston, Pittsburgh and\u00a0Sutherland Springs \u2014 the first two of which were white supremacist-connected but the latter not (and not tied to any -ist\/-ism motivation).<\/p>\n

Happily, this is the only such tweet I\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n

How much do you really know about New Zealand?\u00a0 (Don\u2019t answer if you\u2019re actually from that part of the world.)<\/p>\n

Do you know how ethnically diverse the country is?\u00a0 Do you know whether the country has historically been so or has seen recent increasing levels of immigration?\u00a0 Has the country been seeking out high-skill immigrants, or are they low-skilled?\u00a0 Do you know how successfully those immigrants have been integrated into the mainstream of New Zealand life?\u00a0 Do you know, conversely, how the young white men of the country are faring?\u00a0 Do you know whether any<\/em> of the disputes we have in the U.S.\u00a0exist there?\u00a0 Do you know what the country\u2019s laws on gun ownership are?\u00a0 How the country is doing economically?\u00a0 Whether opioids are a problem?\u00a0 Racial conflict or discrimination?<\/p>\n

Yeah, I don\u2019t know either.<\/p>\n

I know that Australia has seen lots and lots of nonwhite immigration, but that they are also very determined to control it, to the point of moving asylum-seekers offshore.\u00a0 About New Zealand I know squat.\u00a0 (OK, I know that they have a mandatory retirement savings program called KiwiSaver, and at some point they made the news due to complaints that housecats were killing off native bird species, or something like that.\u00a0 I also read not too long ago that the Maori comprise about 15% of their population and that in recent years lots of effort has been expended on integrating them economically while preserving their culture; whether that connects up to any attitudes about immigration, I can\u2019t say.)<\/p>\n

But that also means that I don\u2019t know whether their issues are the same as ours, and that means that I think that, as Americans, we shouldn\u2019t spout off with claims that we know what is wrong and how to fix it.<\/p>\n

Maybe the lack of such claims in my twitter feed is a good sign that this isn\u2019t happening.\u00a0 But I\u2019m fearful that this isn\u2019t, or won\u2019t be the case for long.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3ACrimeScene.jpg; By Supaflyrobby (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons\u00a0 This is just a generic image of a crime scene, not something coming out of the news reports.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember when, back after the Charlie Hebdo attack, everyone changed their profile pictures and said, \u201cje\u00a0suis\u00a0Charlie\u201d?\u00a0 Well, except that it turned out that at least some portion of that everyone later started saying things like, \u201cwell, maybe the magazine shouldn\u2019t have been saying such mean things about Islam.\u201d\u00a0 And later on we ended up with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIn which, no, I am not a New Zealander<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Remember when, back after the Charlie Hebdo attack, everyone changed their profile pictures and said, "je\u00a0suis\u00a0Charlie"?\u00a0 Well, except that it turned out\" 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