Why There Is No Right Way to Mourn the Christchurch Attacks

On March 15 last year, I lost a close friend in the Christchurch attacks. When Haji-Daoud Nabi greeted a stranger at the door of the Al Noor mosque with “hello brother”, he was shot dead – one of 51 people killed.

I met Haji-Daoud at a Wellington mosque as a teenager, which led to a lifelong friendship. His stories partly inspired my PhD research in Afghanistan. There, I studied the way violent events can shape people’s sense of community.

But I never thought those lessons from Afghanistan would one day also apply in the peaceful country I grew up in.

One year on, disagreeing about how to remember

Over the past year, on my visits home to New Zealand, I’ve spoken with victims’ families, community leaders, people working on the recovery effort, and others working with the royal commission of inquiry into the attacks.

I have watched closely as the community I grew up with has moved forward. I have observed Muslim communities that in many ways are stronger now and better integrated – both with each other, and with the wider public – than before last year’s attacks.

Rather than turning people against Muslims, shared grief and anger has arguably led to a stronger society.

But I have also seen disagreements and differences emerge between Muslims in New Zealand, including around how the attacks should be remembered – particularly this Sunday’s planned National Remembrance Service in Christchurch.

Before the event was cancelled on Saturday due to coronavirus concerns, Christchurch City Council had said the Sunday afternoon service would be jointly led by the local Muslim and Māori communities, along with the council and New Zealand government. Thousands of people had been expected to attend, and it was going to be streamed live online for a global audience.

Some in New Zealand had been unhappy about the service, saying they would rather “move on”. Spokespeople from both the Otago and Canterbury Muslim Associations, along with other Muslim groups, had distanced themselves from the commemoration. The general sense has been that celebrating anniversaries is not part of Islamic practice.

But not everyone believes this.

The Al Noor mosque re-opened eight days after the shootings. Earlier this week, Al Noor’s imam Gamal Houda said the attacks were a “crime against humanity” and should be an exception to normal Islamic rules. And other Muslims, like my friend Aya who lost her brother in the attacks, had been part of ongoing planning and consultation around Sunday’s planned commemorations.

For some, “remembering” is an occasion for silence and moving on. For others, it is a time for protest and a catalyst for change.

One of the recurring themes in my PhD fieldwork in Afghanistan, as well as others who have written on violent events, is that the voices of survivors often get subsumed by the “big story” - what the massacre means for a community or national identity.

But what the Christchurch anniversary highlights, yet again, is there is no single, homogeneous group of Muslims, in New Zealand or anywhere else, who all want and believe the same thing.

No one person or community can claim to own an event like the Christchurch attacks, or what it means, or how it is remembered. Each person mourns in their own way.

Cultural practices intertwined

In March last year, I couldn’t get a flight to Christchurch in time to be at Haji-Daoud’s funeral.

Watching his funeral via video instead, I was particularly moved by the haka, led by a Muslim, and the procession of bikies escorting the hearse carrying his body to the burial site.

To me, this spoke to who Haji-Daoud was as a person. He was as Kiwi as he was Afghan.