The geographical expression, called the “edge of the world”, is in a state of shock and mourning as never before in the history of New Zealand. The country’s proud boast of peace has been shattered and it would be labouring the obvious to call Friday’s bedlam and butchery in Christchurch a terrorist attack. A racist or terrorist kills and kills with abandon, and it would be futile to fix a label on the perpetrators. Enough have died already across the world, and profiling of terror can only be of academic interest. The outrage was not another horrific instance of intra-Islamist strife. Suffice it to register that Brenton Tarrant, the suspected 28-year-old Australian assassin, had targeted the Friday congregation at two mosques. Reports in the immediate aftermath of the outrage point to the forbidding emergence of the far Right, a segment that can be no less insidious than the Islamist fundamentalists. Remarkably forthright was the response of New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who at 38 is the world’s youngest head of government. She has swiftly grasped the threat that mosque attacks pose to her country’s society, endangering the values that New Zealanders cherish most ~ their solidarity, their sense of community and their feeling of safety. Many of the victims, she said, may be migrants or refugees and “they are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not. Terrorists seek to divide. In grief and anger, communities must stand together”. With exemplary promptitude, she has pledged a total ban on semi-automatic firearms after the alleged gunman obtained five guns legally. “I can tell you one thing right now: our gun laws will change,” Ms Ardern asserted.

New Zealand has been attacked, and this is the pregnant symbolism of the shootout that has killed 49 worshoppers who had assembled for the Friday prayers. The nation will collectively have to grapple with the overwhelming trauma that has followed the carnage, described by the country’s Prime Minister as one of its “darkest days”. With the worst mass shooting in the nation’s history, New Zealand’s image that it is one of the few countries beyond the reach of global terrorism has tragically turned out to be an illusion.

Nonetheless, the world must give it to the Prime Minister that she has been more decisive in articulating her signal of intent than Heads of State and Government in other parts of the world who have turned out to be effete in the face of the culture of the gun. No less critical than the easy availability of the weapon is the racist angle to the catastrophe ~ the.assassin displayed white supremacist symbols during the deadly assault. To that must be added the emergence of the far right, assisted by the social media. The manifesto, videos and photos associated with the latest atrocity have been circulated on the web, showing some people engaged in macabre celebration. It is a hideous crisis ~ or Islamophobia if you will ~ that confronts New Zealand today.