Jacinda Ardern has been brilliant with her reaction to this. I think she's great.
Mass Shooting in Christchurch, NZ Mosque | 14th March 2019
- Thread starter Carolina Red
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I miss living there so much. It just felt like everyone still had basic human decency there, best place in the world for me. That's so good from Air NZ as well.
They've set the standard after just one major incident. America's response to a tragedy like this has always been terrible, but this just amplifies that. The NZ PM is brilliant.
I kind of love New Zealand too. Visited in my 20's and liked the people a lot, just very good humoured. Thought it would be the last place in the world that would have these problems. Not surprised by their reaction, they seem uncommonly sensible and decent.
I can't agree with you on that I'm afraid. Aboriginals were exploited or murdered in masses followed by forced assimilation and cultural genocide. You've brought up one of the darkest periods of our (short) history that we're only begun to acknowledge and atone for.
Yeah I've heard some stuff about Canada and the native population that doesn't show the Europeans in the best light.
That's funny, because there are still a million and a half of us left. Originally, especially in Quebec, there was a good deal of cooperation between indigenous people and settlers, granted it was not always rosy. After the wars against the French, the British enlisted the indigenous tribes to fight against the Americans in the war of 1812, where their warriors fought with bravery and distinction. It was only later that bad things became more institutionalized. Prior to the British North America act and the Indian Act things were a lot more reasonable. But with the passing of those legislative acts we became a "problem" and had to be solved, which resulted in things getting bad for us.
You are, perhaps, conflating a bit of the indigenous experience south of the border with that up here. Indeed, many tribes fled persecution and genocide in the US and were welcomed to Canada, only to find similar, but less bloodthirsty opposition to their presence after the aforementioned acts were passed. It's actually a pretty interesting development that was a product of the age as many countries in the mid to late 19th century experienced their own "questions" and "problems" with certain ethnic groups within their borders or continentally (i.e. the German problem or the Italian problem in Europe etc).
I know that snuff video is bad, and those who watches it religiously especially those who gain pleasure of it should be chastised. However, I didn’t know us regular people who just want to understand how the event transpired can be criticized for it as well. It is like calling out an investigator, concerned citizen or a freelance investigator for watching a snuff video when there only motivate is to understand what happened and how they can prevent such an event from happening again. Eitherway, I know my motives for watching the video wasn’t to get of to it and this is perhaps my first snuff video that I have seen because it was everywhere on Twitter. I understand your perspective to why you to think it is wrong, I just believe that perspective is targeted towards the wrong person.
Could not disagree more.
Not only would I defend watching the video, I would have liked the mainstream media to straight up show it to everyone. It actually bothers me that they’re censoring it.
There’s a reason the right wing goons immediately called for people to avoid it. God forbid the people see where this ideaology can ultimately lead. God forbid they see the horror inflicted on these poor people they’ve done so much to dehumanise. It’s easy to downplay murder when it’s just another mass shooting, just another bombing or in the case of war, just more “collateral damage.” Easy to hide the carnage and suffering behind words and statistics.
The idea that people would relate to the killer or sympathise with his twisted worldview upon seeing the footage is just insane. And anyone who would is so far gone that it’s hardly significant one way or the other. Throughout recent history visual exposure of such atrocities has done a lot to increase empathy with the victims, to snap them out of any grand delusions - Vietnam, Auschwitz, Iraq etc. - It’s not voyeurism, it’s reality and it should be exposed rather than hidden away.
Watching the video was heartbreaking, traumatising and hugely infuriating - The way it should be. No words could ever do it justice.
Earlier in this thread I said that the reason not to watch it was to respect the victims. I always think we should put ourselves in the place of the family - if it were your father or brother being shot, would you want countless strangers looking at their anguish over and over again?
I cant imagine how grim it would be knowing there was video footage of someone you loved dieing. I'd say there'd be a real temptation to watch it and i cant imagine that being at all healthy
Respect that you've put a lot of thought and research into this topic. I've met a lot of people in Montreal who were oblivious to it. The government of Canada has a lot of improvement to make in that area. Trudeau was on the right path but really dropped it with Wilson-Raybould.
I lean more towards this.
Reminds me of when Emmitt Till, a black boy, was lynched in Mississippi by white men after being accused of speaking to a white woman. When it came time for the burial in Chicago, his mother insisted on an open casket, saying:
I've only seen the image of Till's bloated, mutilated face a few times. I can never forget it. Not will I forget that it was virulent and violent racism and racist ideology that caused this.
If my brother was shot by a racist cnut, yes. I would want the world, including strangers, to see the end result of racism. It may not convert a racist, but it may shock those who otherwise tweet "thoughts and prayers" into more forceful action.
I'm a Status Indian so I know a thing or two. There is a lot to do, for sure.
Well said.
I'm quite sure the family of the dead would very strongly disagree with the idea that mainstream media should broadcast a video of their loved ones being murdered. I'm not sure why the media (or anyone else) would think that their own version of using those images for political ends would take precedent over dealing with the actual human cost of the incident. I'll happily sit out a grim, nightmarish world where people have to endure their loved ones' terrified, brutal final moments being broadcast back to them as part of a 24 news cycle just so a portion (and likely only a small portion) of those consuming this new content get to feel like some abstract point has been proven.
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I agree with you.
When does it become okay though? Because it definitely does. There’s no shortage of filmed murder shown in any documentary covering a genocide. And it is included specifically because it is meant to show the brutality of the act so that hopefully it deters it from happening again.
That type of stuff is well after the fact though, I don't know if many people will have objections to viewing the footage in 40 years time but within a week of the massacre is too soon.
Not to mention the killer wants the video to be shown and playing it literally gives into what he would want to happen. The people who don't want to see it will just change channels or close the browser.
This, 100%.
I’d definitely say that there needs to be a period where it’s not shown publicly out of respect for those in mourning, absolutely. I was just wondering as to what people thought in regards to the time table. It isn’t just videos on genocide either, to be honest. They’ve shown the footage of the Columbine school shooting in recent years as well. It definitely isn’t a “cut and dry” issue, in my opinion.
I think the 40 years was just a number he grabbed from nowhere, but this was still 20 years ago and by anyone's definition, well after the fact.
Because they exists doesn't make it definitely ok.
I know he wasn’t trying to set a hard number there. I’m just talking about other events like this one that have eventually made their way to mainstream media. Again, I don’t know what the timetable is, but there definitely seems to be one. It’s a gray area.
It depends a lot on the context? You'd expect to see horrific scenes if you watched a documentary on a war or whatever and you'd expect them to have some warning or certification if it was going to really go into the gory details. Having it presented as part of the nightly news is a different matter. The internet skews things seeing as the nightly news doesn't exactly exist anymore, i suppose.
I agree with everything you’ve said here.
Just had to read on my facebook feed someone sharing a post claiming it to be a hoax 
. Clicked on the comments, and it was just a wall of people agreeing, and highlighting all types of inconsistencies in it. I just find it bizarre that people go to so much effort to try and prove these events to be some sort of "false flag" and the number of people who agree with that. I don't even know if there has actually ever been any proven false flag attacks, let alone one in NZ.
. Clicked on the comments, and it was just a wall of people agreeing, and highlighting all types of inconsistencies in it. I just find it bizarre that people go to so much effort to try and prove these events to be some sort of "false flag" and the number of people who agree with that. I don't even know if there has actually ever been any proven false flag attacks, let alone one in NZ.But... Freedom of speech. Or something.About memes generally:
See, I'm not so dumb that I don't understand the meme potential of this. But I also think that it is a (in this case, extremely thin) cover for endorsing genocide.
Oppressed racist people. Not being able to say the racist things they want.
+1 One of the best post I have read on Redcafe.
As Irish stated, not only does the right wing intentional doesn’t want the world to see these video because they know that the world will finally realize where there ideology leads to, but also exposure to such atrocities will lead to immediate change. It is like the victims of gun violence, the people who are less affected only give their thoughts and prayers, but I am sure if someone they know had this happen to them, they would ask for immediate change as well. Things like this shouldn’t be ignored and people needs to realize this is what the right wing ideology is.
Ironically, the one thing we should not tolerate is intolerance. Otherwise intolerance permeates through all of society.
I understand the argument about showing it to demonstrate the potential end-point of unchecked racism, and maybe in years to come it'll be used in that way - just like the images of bodies at the concentration camps are often shown nowadays.
However, I strongly suspect that many people who actively sought out this vid were just wanting to see something awful, for whatever personal reason. Most of the victims haven't even been buried yet, we know who a lot of them are, we've seen their faces online and read their stories. It's too close to be comfortable, in my view.
When my parents died they were both fortunate enough to be in their own home, with their loved ones. I have often felt grateful for that, having seen a lot of people end their days in hospitals surrounded by strangers. At your most vulnerable moment, it's a blessing to have privacy. These poor people who've been murdered deserve that small concession.
There's truth in both standpoints in this discussion, and I feel this is the best way to deal with it. (I understand the one week / 40 years timeframe is just for illustration.) But because there's truth to both standpoints, I wouldn't criticise anyone for handling it differently.
Just one example, seeing photos of the Paris shooting has definitely influenced my awareness about the nature of these murders in a way numbers and words simply couldn't. It's the same with graphic pictures from war zones, pogroms, terror attacks. The shock can temporarily suspend the normality gross violence has in our consciousness, and the silent acceptance that goes along with it. And I think that's very important. There's inevitably something morbid to it, but to me the main source of this still lies in the deed, not the reception. There's simply no perfect way to deal with things like that being part of our world.
(I won't watch the Christchurch video btw, couldn't stomach it.)
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I agree with you. I was surprised when I read in this thread that there's people arguing that everyone "should" watch it, I don't see any reason for anyone to watch it other than the prosecution (and family members if it somehow helps them, although I don't believe it can).
These people did not choose to give up their privacy, they had no word in it. Also I have to question adults who need graphic images of death to see what damage a terror attack like this does. Possibly we're so removed from anything like it that they feel the need to have a better understanding, but it still leaves me with a strange feeling that so many want to see it.
Hearing the NZ PM say she won't say his name because he sought notoriety and she doesn't want to add to that strengthened my belief that I don't want to watch it though, because one thing is sure:
It's his video. He chose to film it and performed every action. He wrote the script (figuratively). It is his product and not some surveillance video. And he broadcasted it because he wanted people to watch it.
I'm not doing him that favor.
I personally feel there’s is absolutely no benefit in watching that video or it being shown constantly in the news/ on net?
Why are we so obsessed with normalising this behaviour.
I’d say for the massive majority who will never commit or even think about committing such a crime or joining some shit organisation there is no benefit of watching people being killed.
If you are think there are people capable of being radicalised by these groups and watching such a video might make them take a step back and think, I may end up doing this one day I better look into what I’m doing, I personally disagree with that.
The massive majority of people should not have this video shoved in their face, it becoming normalised and people becoming desensitised as a result of that.
I couldn’t think of anything worse to watch, I can’t believe people can watch it with absolutely no benefit to themselves
Why are we so obsessed with normalising this behaviour.
I’d say for the massive majority who will never commit or even think about committing such a crime or joining some shit organisation there is no benefit of watching people being killed.
If you are think there are people capable of being radicalised by these groups and watching such a video might make them take a step back and think, I may end up doing this one day I better look into what I’m doing, I personally disagree with that.
The massive majority of people should not have this video shoved in their face, it becoming normalised and people becoming desensitised as a result of that.
I couldn’t think of anything worse to watch, I can’t believe people can watch it with absolutely no benefit to themselves
Indeed.
There was an incident in Ireland a few months ago where someone was decapitated in a car crash and posts of the accident were being circulated online before the victim had even been identified. The people who took, sought out and circulated those images (and indeed those who rubberneck at grizzly accidents generally) certainly didn't do so because they thought it would make them more conscious of road safety. Clearly horrific images and videos spark a morbid curiosity in some people, a morbid curiosity that mainstream outlets should feel no need to sate just because some of those indulging in it claim it provides some sort of high-minded moral worth.
I'll never understand people want to watch other people die. I don't think I could respect someone who actively looked for this video, or used to frequent the now banned watchpeopledie sub on Reddit, for example.
I feel a few important nuances to this discussion go missing when some reduce the issue to nothing else than a matter of satisfying individual perversity. (Although shameless voyeurism exists plentyful in all this, no doubt.)
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For me the problem with broadcasting the footage of the murders is that, while 99 people out of 100 might be appalled by it - hell, even 999 people out of 1000 - there are always those outliers that would be inspired by it. And the 999 people are probably the ones who would never consider going on a murderous rampage anyway. Those people dont need the exposure to something like this to show them it is wrong, they know it anyway.
Even setting aside the question of broadcasting the footage itself, merely reporting these atrocities as widely as we do sometimes feels like it fetishises terrorism. I always picture the next jihadi wannabee watching on TV thinking, I could have done a better job than that, or I would do this or that differently to make sure I killed more people. I imagine it being almost like each atrocity gets a "score" and the next person sees it and thinks, right, this is the score to beat, I have to do it better, I have to be more efficient, I have to kill more people, I have to make the scene more spectacular, more dramatic. Its the same with these school shootings in America as well.
I dont know what to do about that, and I have given it a lot of thought over the years. I certainly do not advocate brushing these news stories under the carpet - either not reporting them, or underreporting them, in order to deprive the incidents of oxygen and the terrorists of the "glory" or notoriety they seek. People have a right to know what is going on. But I do think the fame these terrorists get, even after death, is part of the incentive - and a not insignificant part of it at that. They see it as giving meaning to their boring, uneventful, inconsequential lives. They do something that goes down in history, their names, or at least their deeds, live on, and maybe change the course of history.
I think broadcasting their deeds live exacerbates that problem many times over. It is a step in the wrong direction. As I said before, it subjects. say, 999 people out of 1000 to something that will deeply, deeply unsettle them, to ensure they never do something they would never have done anyway. But for the 1000th person that might be thinking about doing something like this, my guess is it only increases the appeal. It shows them the world WILL see what they do, it will be dumbfounded by it, their deeds will be broadcast into every living room around the world. For people looking for notoriety, it ratchets up the notoriety on offer to even higher levels.
If you want to tell me that this 1000th person, this potential mass murderer, this complete outlier of a human being, is thinking about mass murder, but is going to watch a video of it and think, actually, that is really horrible, I dont think I am going to do that after all? I guess it is possible, but I dont buy it. I think the person capable of these actions sees this video in a completely different light to the rest of us.
Even setting aside the question of broadcasting the footage itself, merely reporting these atrocities as widely as we do sometimes feels like it fetishises terrorism. I always picture the next jihadi wannabee watching on TV thinking, I could have done a better job than that, or I would do this or that differently to make sure I killed more people. I imagine it being almost like each atrocity gets a "score" and the next person sees it and thinks, right, this is the score to beat, I have to do it better, I have to be more efficient, I have to kill more people, I have to make the scene more spectacular, more dramatic. Its the same with these school shootings in America as well.
I dont know what to do about that, and I have given it a lot of thought over the years. I certainly do not advocate brushing these news stories under the carpet - either not reporting them, or underreporting them, in order to deprive the incidents of oxygen and the terrorists of the "glory" or notoriety they seek. People have a right to know what is going on. But I do think the fame these terrorists get, even after death, is part of the incentive - and a not insignificant part of it at that. They see it as giving meaning to their boring, uneventful, inconsequential lives. They do something that goes down in history, their names, or at least their deeds, live on, and maybe change the course of history.
I think broadcasting their deeds live exacerbates that problem many times over. It is a step in the wrong direction. As I said before, it subjects. say, 999 people out of 1000 to something that will deeply, deeply unsettle them, to ensure they never do something they would never have done anyway. But for the 1000th person that might be thinking about doing something like this, my guess is it only increases the appeal. It shows them the world WILL see what they do, it will be dumbfounded by it, their deeds will be broadcast into every living room around the world. For people looking for notoriety, it ratchets up the notoriety on offer to even higher levels.
If you want to tell me that this 1000th person, this potential mass murderer, this complete outlier of a human being, is thinking about mass murder, but is going to watch a video of it and think, actually, that is really horrible, I dont think I am going to do that after all? I guess it is possible, but I dont buy it. I think the person capable of these actions sees this video in a completely different light to the rest of us.
Hearing about it was heart breaking, traumatisingand infuriating. Just like every other attack of its kind. It's simply not true that you need video evidence to feel that. There is nothing new that you can glean from this that you couldn't have gleaned from watching a right wing inspired mass murder from years ago, or from simply reading about this one. The reason you chose to watch the video of this event was not to inspire those feelings.
They have done dozens of media, criminology and sociology studies on this and the consensus is that it is harmful to broadcast the footage of a mass murderer / serial killer widely because it adds nothing and introduces the risk of others' using it as inspiration. And if you don't think things like this act as inspiration then you only need to look at the coast guard who tried to emulate Breivik not long ago.
We shouldn't be ashamed of our human nature but the evidence has been out for a long, long time, and it's never listened to. The moral and practical arguments for it only exist in ignorance of that evidence. What people are doing is just satiating a desire. I agree with @Synco, however, that the desire is not simply perversity.
That's a pretty compelling example, but substantively different on two points.
Replaying the footage of an attack and showing the aftermath of an attack have the same benefit - visceral horror, occasionally leading to social revolt - but the aftermath does not pose the same risks of inspiring others and normalising violence and hatred. Psychologically we just don't process it the same way.
The other is that people could live in ignorance of the nasty reality of Emmitt Till's life, and the lives he represented. The dam needed to burst. I don't think you can draw a remotely useful parallel to your imagined death, or the deaths here. Right wing violence may be underreported but it is not unacknowledged and it does not lack for moments of true terror to grip society. We've had lots of that already and repeated the same futile process. That's available at our fingertips right now. That isn't what is preventing society from taking action.
Its practical value is on an individual level and unfortunately, that practical value is not the kind people are preaching about. We do things every day for bad reasons and rationalise them in wonderfully complex ways to make them sound enlightened. That just isn't the case here. We don't have good solutions, but it is irresponsible to claim this is part of the solution.