Yesterday morning I sat in church just as I have a thousand times, but for the first time something changed; I felt fear. Fear that as we sat there praying with our backs to the door, we were doing the same thing that those innocent men, women and children were doing when they were slaughtered. Slaughtered for their faith and for their family background.
I sat there thinking that half our congregation isn’t white and that many including my husband weren’t born here. That the white supremacist gunman could have done just as much damage in that room as he did in Christchurch.
It’s a thought I never imagined having in New Zealand because it’s “not who we are.”
But then I thought a little more.
If I, someone born in New Zealand, whose parents were born in New Zealand and who has three New Zealand born grandparents has been made to feel unwelcome in this land, then how many others have also been made to feel that way?
I have been made to feel that this isn’t my real home, made to feel left out. I have been criticised and laughed at for my faith.
Because of my brown skin a stranger in the supermarket called me a mongrel. Friends have said to my face that they “don’t like brown people” as I sat feeling incredibly aware of the fact my skin is 20 shades darker than theirs.
So no, at first when we said “this is not who we are” we were wrong. We have been like this, myself included. We have helped spread poison in our land; and for that I am deeply sorry.
But this is not who we have to be any more. This doesn’t have to be our future. Let this be a line in the sand. A marker of the time an entire nation stood up to racism. When an entire nation chose to forgive and not retaliate. When an entire nation stood up to support and love; no matter what.
New Zealand has been the first to do many things, so let us be the first to make a nationwide stand for loving our neighbours. We’re all immigrants, we just came at different times.
New Zealand, we can do this and we so desperately need to.
