New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday criticised a deliberate film about her response to the 2019 Christchurch mosque assaults as poorly timed and focussed on the unsuitable topic.
The US-backed movie “They Are Us” has sparked an intense backlash among New Zealand Muslims, with community leaders slamming the project for pushing a “white saviour” narrative. Ardern mentioned the assaults — when a white supremacist gunman ran amok at two mosques throughout Friday prayers, killing 51 and significantly injuring one other 40 — remained “very uncooked” for many New Zealanders.
She said filmmakers had not consulted her about the movie, which is set to star Australia’s Rose Byrne as the centre-left leader. “In my view, which is a personal view, it feels very soon and very raw for New Zealand,” Ardern instructed TVNZ.
“And whereas there are such a lot of tales that needs to be instructed sooner or later, I don’t think about mine to be one in every of them — they’re the group’s tales, the households’ tales.” Ardern won widespread praise for her empathetic and inclusive handling of the attacks, the worst mass shooting in modern New Zealand history, including wearing a scarf when meeting mourners.
The movie’s title references a line from a speech she gave in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity when she pledged to support the Muslim community and tighten gun laws.
A petition from the National Islamic Youth Association calling for the production to be shut down has gathered more than 58,000 signatures. The association said the proposed film “sidelines the victims and survivors and instead centres the response of a white woman”.
It mentioned the Muslim group had not been correctly consulted in regards to the challenge, which has been scripted by New Zealand author Andrew Niccol. “Entities and people shouldn’t search to commercialise or revenue from a tragedy that befell our group, neither ought to such an atrocity be sensationalised”, association co-chair Haris Murtaza said.
Muslim poet Mohamed Hassan said the filmmakers needed to focus on members of the community that bore the brunt of the attacks, not use them as props in a feel-good story about Ardern. “You do not get to tell this story. You do not get to turn this into a White Saviour narrative. This is not yours,” he tweeted.
The attacker, Australian self-declared white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, was jailed for all times with out parole final 12 months, the primary time a whole-of-life time period has been imposed in New Zealand.
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