The Daily Signal - Bonus: What You Need to Know About Terrorism Attack in New Zealand

Episode Date: March 15, 2019

Heritage Foundation's Robin Simcox,whose research focuses on terrorism and national security, joins the podcast to discuss the attack in New Zealand, the alleged shooter's views on white supremacy, the targeting of a mosque, and the live streaming of the shooting on Facebook. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast, and I'm Kate Trinko. I'm here with Robin Simcox, the Margaret Thatcher Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Robin focuses here on research on terrorism and national security. Thanks for joining us today, Robin. Great to be with you. All right. So the media is currently reporting that 49 at least have died in this horrible shooting in New Zealand and another 20 are injured. Does that make this one of the highest death counts for this kind of act ever? Well, it's a terrible act. It's a large body count. It's not the highest we've seen in the West in recent years. But of course, in terms of an attack on a mosque and certainly an attack in New Zealand where acts of terrorism are exceedingly rare, it is a very significant and of course tragic incident. So you mentioned that for New Zealand, this is unusual. Is this a new part of the world for this kind of action? I mean, I mean, has New Zealand ever had a shooting comparable to this? No, it hasn't. I mean, and the perpetrator of the attack was actually Australian as well. There was a bit more, there's a little more of a history in Australia with terrorism, but New Zealand is very quiet in comparison.

And so there is, of course, I mean, it's a extraordinarily disturbing development. I think it's sometimes we associate these acts of terrorism taking place in major six. So London or New York or Paris, and of course there's been a lot of attacks that have taken place in those cities. But if you look at some of the white supremacist attacks that have taken place in recent years, obviously there's attack in Christchurch. We had the attack in Pittsburgh in Charleston, South Carolina with Dylan Roof, and of course in Oslo with Anders Breivik in 2011. It's been in some of the locations that you wouldn't necessarily expect, not major population hubs.

And so I think it's sometimes these white supremacist attacks can take place in somewhat unexpected destinations. So I know the facts are still coming out. We're recording this on Friday afternoon. But from what we know now, would you say that this is an act of terrorism that occurred? Yeah, absolutely. There's a the gunman uploaded a his manifesto

he provided a link to it online which makes very clear reference to Muslims being invaders as to there being a genocide of white people it's very clearly a political ideological statement that he's putting out and these acts of violence

are in in an attempt to to kind of further his political cause which is the definition of terrorism. And have we ever seen this kind of level of violence at mosques before, this kind of targeted shooting or other act of violence? Well, there's been acts of violence against mosques. So in 2017, for example, there was a vehicular attack in London on Finnsbury Park Mosque,

which led to one person being killed. I think the big difference here really is the scale. obviously 49 people killed as of as we speak on Friday afternoon with many more injured and also I think the

the the horror of it being live streamed on Facebook is another additional components to this that we haven't really seen too often in the past it was I mean the footage is understandably not being being shared around

but this this guy carried out the attack in that way because he wanted people to watch it and he wanted people to be inspired as hard as that may be to believe by the grotesque acts of violence which he was perpetrating and so there's a lot about this attack that has a unique feel to it and and it is it's a very dark day for New Zealand yeah I mean it's so chilling to think that that footage exists in New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted, while there is no specific or credible threat at this time, we are increasing our NYPD presence at Moss throughout the city out of an abundance of caution. Do Muslims around the world have reason for concern now that there could be copycat attacks or further attacks as part of this?

Well, I think it's understandable that there is a level of precaution today, of course, because there is that fear, as I mentioned, that this kind of attack will inspire copycats. Obviously, terrorism generally is an extraordinarily rare occurrence, thankfully. Seems to be getting more common these days than it used to be, but it is still rare. And there isn't widespread hatred or fear of Muslims. I don't believe that is the case in the West at all. But of course, we have to be mindful. And as the attack in New Zealand showed, there are these people who have a very important.

very sick and evil and twisted ideology where they view regular Muslims as their enemy, as people who have come to the West to eliminate the white race and act accordingly with these dreadful acts of violence. So I think it's understandable that in the wake of this attack, they've ramped up security around mosques, the threat level in New Zealand. has been raised, all understandable responses, but I still don't believe that there is a, that this is going to be, we must hope this isn't the harbinger of something more frequent. You know, as I said earlier, we're still finding out a lot of the facts.

However, the Wall Street Journal and other outlets are reporting that there appears to be reason to believe that the alleged shooter was motivated by white supremacist views. You mentioned briefly that we have seen some attacks along these lines before. does this sort of follow the usual pattern? Is it new? Do we need to be more concerned about white supremacy in light of these attacks? Well, there is something a little different about it. I mean, so white supremacist attacks certainly have been, is not a new phenomenon. There's been an unfortunate amount of them in recent years especially. I think what was slightly different about this is that he, more than any other extreme right-wing terrorist that

I can remember, seems to be entirely immersed in this quite weird, twisted, dark corner of internet culture, where his manifesto, along with the usual references to various kind of like white supremacist iconography, also refers to various. memes, to quite obscure references to kind of like internet culture that he's exposed to through 4chan, these kind of these image posting boards where you can post anonymously. And there's also a, the manifesto is also sarcastic at times or self-knowing. I mean, he refers to individuals as inspirations behind his attack who very clearly aren't. It's facetious almost at times, his manifesto, which is unusual, but also a sign that he, the language makes sense in the context of the internet culture in which he's operating.

But it's not a language that we're terribly familiar with outside that specific kind of strange part of internet culture. So does it surprise you that this attack was carried out with guns? I think that the kind of attack that was being planned, firearms does make sense because he obviously wanted to live stream it. So he wanted all the people that had clicked on the Facebook link that he had attached to his post online that enabled people to watch him as he carried out this terrorist attack. it's almost like with the way it's filmed, you're watching a video game. And so to kind of create the impact he wanted,

I'm not surprised that he chose firearms as opposed to knives or a vehicle or something like that because it gives that effect of it being like you're watching someone in Call of Duty or one of these other PlayStation games. it almost makes the video feel unreal in some ways. But the use of firearms, I think, makes sense not only for the lethality of the weapon, but also the way it enabled people to watch this attack take place. Okay. Well, thank you for joining us, Robin. Thank you.

So thank you for listening to The Daily Signal podcast, brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or YouTube. SoundCloud and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes. Rob and Rachel, we'll see you Monday. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis, sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Ramprasad. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.