Nerd Church - New Zealand. What Can I Say?

New Zealand.

What can I say?

Nothing that can make this horrible terrorist attack better or more bearable.

Nothing that can bring back the beautiful people you lost.

All I can give you is my heart, which breaks for you.

All I can give you is my love, in the faint hopes that it will help in some tiny way to sooth what hatred has done.




All I can give you is my voice - my promise that I won't be quiet.

That I will speak against hatred whenever it's safe to do so, and wherever I find it.


All I can give you is my promise to treat all people with dignity and respect and equality.

All I can give you is my promise to love the world with all my heart.



All I can give you is my apologies for the Islamophobia and racism so rampant in this world.

For too long we White people have ignored the poison in the veins of our communities, focussing instead on those we find it easier to portray as 'other,' as 'the enemy.'

For too long we've been ignoring the fact that, when you turn out the lights, all terrorists sound the same, regardless of where they come from, their skin colour, religion, whatever.

In the dark, only their hatred is visible.



It's always easier to blame our problems on people who are not like 'us', simply because 'they're' different.

It's never fair to do so.

For what it's worth, on behalf of my fellow White folks, I'm sorry.



I wish I could give your loved ones back to you.

But your loved ones were beautiful, amazing, perfect, flawed, complex, people; the light in the darkness.

Nothing can take away what they meant to you.

Nothing can take away the people that they were.



I know this post isn't likely to mean a lot - I'm a random White Welsh chick who can't even begin to imagine what the Muslim community in New Zealand, and globally, is going through.

But if my words do even the tiniest shred of good, this post will have been worth writing.



We stand with you, in your grief. And hopefully we'll be strong enough to stand with you afterwards, too.

← Previous Post | Next Post →

Last updated: 31st March 2019