Opinion | Christchurch shooting: racism in New Zealand isn’t new and in the era of Donald Trump, what public figures say about race matters
- Mass killing in the service of extremist politics is new to New Zealand, but virulently racist ideas are not some sudden import from a nefarious global movement
- The seeds of such ideas were planted long ago in both New Zealand and Australia – by us.
One evening, I went to a bar with a high school friend. There I spotted a skinhead: white, young, with a shaven head, in a Swastika T-shirt.
I asked to leave. Just out of the door, I felt a hand touch the back of my head. I swung around and swatted away the neo-Nazi’s arm before taking a good look at what was going on. Then I saw that he now had three companions, all in Swastika T-shirts. Luckily, they were no more spoiling for a fight than we were.
A couple of years later, I went to Sydney to visit another friend, a Singaporean of Indian heritage who was in Australia training for his new job. We had dinner with one of his colleagues, a young white Australian.
The topic of conversation turned to immigration. The Australian asked why it was that most Asian immigrants chose to live in major cities like Sydney and Melbourne. Before I could respond, he answered his own question.
