National Conference of Black Political Scientists Expresses Solidarity with Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre in New Zealand
Contacts: Sekou Franklin, President Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, President-Elect Kathie Stromile Golden, Executive Director
The National Conference of Black Political Scientists expresses sadness and outrage at the premeditated execution during Friday Prayer on March 15, 2018 in Christchurch, New Zealand at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre. We, like the survivors, mourn the tragic murder of 50 people and the injury of 50 others.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden, has been widely celebrated around the world for her unequivocal stance against Islamophobia and white supremacy. This kind of leadership and moral courage will continue to shape the future of our goals for ethical interfaith activism and work toward peace and justice.
Islam has made a long, generative, and significant contribution to the lives of people of African descent and other people all over the world. This history is not without past and present complications, as a world religion and a faith practiced by tens of millions of people of African descent for centuries, but we will not remain silent in the face of white supremacy and its intention to marshal hatred to divide humanity. We are particularly attuned to the consequences and costs of the global armaments industry and its inability to regulate itself effectively or mitigate the normalized harm done to Black people and other people of color around the world.
As an organization supportive of advancing the best conditions of people of African descent globally, NCOBPS is well aware of the signs of rising racial resentment and the coordinated turn toward fascism and far right extremist politics. For this reason, we understand these forms of non-state calculated anti-Muslim vigilante violence perpetrated in New Zealand as inextricably linked to the forms of vigilante and state violence regularly meted out against our people across the globe.
We show solidarity with the survivors of that horrific day. This act was a political watershed meant to instill fear in the hearts of people worldwide. We are calling for continued investigation into these acts and identification of the persons involved in New Zealand and around the world. We are calling for a wordwide stand against Islamophobia, white supremacy, and hatreds of any kind. We salute the leadership of New Zealand and their work toward a world no longer riddled by the ongoing public health pandemic of gun violence.
We join in all expressions of solidarity with the people of New Zealand as they mourn and recover and help lead us in the struggle to a more peaceful and just world.
Special thanks to April Jackson and Clarence Lusane for authoring this statement.