I am sure we all know the details of the terrorist attack by now. To give a very brief summary, a young Australian citizen entered two mosques in the town of Christchurch in New Zealand, killing at least 50 people and wounding many others. After half an hour, he was arrested by the authorities, which suspect that he acted alone. Presumably, he chose New Zealand, as the security there is less advanced than in Australia, due to the latter's experience with the Port Arthur massacre.
His motives are pretty clear, according to his published manifesto: He focuses a lot on the conspiracy theory of White Genocide and the hysteria of white Europeans being replaced by brown barbarians. The document is the epitome of alt-right trolling and Internet memes, as he's self-described as a "kebab-remover" and spammed the Navy Seal copy-pasta. I believe he was active in the notorious community of 4chan and he even called his rambling an "effortpost" and not a "shitpost". He idolised his fellow mosque-shooter of Canada and pretended to act in the defense of the Rotherham victims. Even one of the rifles he used is full of weird graffiti.
"Turkofagos" for example means Turkish-eater in Greek and was used as an epithet to describe the vanquisher of the Turks. The perpetrator obviously copied it from obscure Islamophobic sites, who fetishize Vienna, the Crusades and Lepanto. Internet slang and stupid memes aside, I think it's time to give some attention to the radicalisation provoked by edgy communities, who turn idiots with a bad sense of humour into murderous psychopaths. Perhaps the /pol/ should be monitored as closely as the various jihadist websites recruiting disenfranchised youths for daesh.
The incident was of course internationally criticized, although many far-right clowns secretly sympathize with the perpetrator and justify his killing-spree as a necessary response to the modern "cosmopolitan dystopia". An Australian Senator not only excused the murderer but also called his actions as a show of "vigilantism". I wonder how he will perform in the next elections.
I personally wish rest in peace to the victims and my sincere condolences to their families, while I hope that the town of Christchurch and the society of New Zealand will manage to overcome this terrible tragedy.
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