Christchurch survivor tells remembrance service: ‘I choose peace’

634

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, March 29, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A Maori lament echoed
across Christchurch Friday as a survivor of the New Zealand mosque attacks
told a national remembrance service he had forgiven the gunman responsible
for the racist massacre that took his wife, and shocked the world.

“I am choosing peace and I have forgiven,” wheelchair-bound Farid Ahmed
told tens of thousands gathered in the grieving southern city, drawing
sustained applause as he implored New Zealanders of all faiths to also reject
hate.

Wearing a traditional Maori cloak, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was among
those who stood silently with heads bowed while the names of 50 people killed
by a self-avowed white supremacist were read out.

Speakers honoured the dead and those who survived the March 15 attacks,
including 22 people who remain in hospital, among them a critically injured
four-year-old girl.

Ardern, who was joined by representatives from nearly 60 nations, including
her Australian counterpart Scott Morrison, received a prolonged standing
ovation when she took the stage.

The 38-year-old leader, widely hailed for her response to the tragedy,
praised the way New Zealanders had embraced their devastated Muslim community
since the attacks.

“Racism exists, but it is not welcome here,” she said, adding that she
hoped New Zealand would set an example to stop the cycle of extremism
breeding extremism.

“We are not immune to the viruses of hate, of fear, of other — we never
have been,” she said.

“But we can be the nation that discovers the cure.”

The hastily organised event was held amid tight security, with Police
Commissioner Mike Bush confirming armed police from Australia were on site to
assist their New Zealand counterparts.

The service heard a Muslim invocation, or du’a, and Cat Stevens — the
British singer who shunned stardom in the 1970s and became a Muslim, taking
the name Yusuf Islam — gave a powerful rendition of his hit song “Peace
Train”.

But the most moving speech came from Ahmed, whose wife Husna was killed as
she rushed back into a mosque trying to rescue her disabled husband.

– ‘Attack on us all’ –

Looking frail in his wheelchair as he sat on stage wearing sunglasses and a
headscarf, Ahmed said he bore no hatred toward the accused gunman, Australian
Brenton Tarrant.

“People ask me, ‘why do you forgive someone who has killed your beloved
wife?'” he said.

“I can give so many answers… Allah says if we forgive one another he
loves us.”

Ahmed said people from different cultures were like flowers and “together
we are a beautiful garden”.

“I don’t want a heavy heart boiling like a volcano with anger, fury and
rage — it burns itself and burns its surroundings,” he said.

“I want a heart full of love, care and mercy. This heart does not want any
more lives to be lost, any other human to go through the pain I’ve gone
through.

“That’s why I am choosing peace and I have forgiven.”

Amid the tears and grief, there was optimism among the crowd that the
outpouring of compassion that followed the attacks would become the lasting
legacy of its victims.

“I’m very positive about this continuing,” said Manan Bohra, who runs a
Muslim community centre in Auckland. “When we’re walking down the street
people are coming up and expressing their peace and love.

“It was a very tragic event, but it’s been a life-changing event for the
nation itself.”

Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel said the atrocity was “an attack on us
all”.

“Those actions were designed to divide us and tear us apart,” she said.

“They have instead united us.”