The Foreboding Implications of the New Zealand Knife Attack

“Whoever takes a life, it will be as if they killed all of humanity.” These are the words that were revealed to the world 1440 years ago in the Quran, these are the words that dictate explicitly and clearly the steep weight of human blood in Islam. These are the words that ISIS claims to live by when it calls itself an Islamic State, yet violate and ignore at any chance. During the past decade, since the rise of ISIS, only death and misery have been rampant in the Levant, where ISIS is found. Recently, the world has been forced to wake up yet again to this reality, thought as long gone, when a lone man Ahamed Samsudeen went on a stabbing rampage in a New Zealand shop. But the thing that makes him peculiar is he had already been known as an ISIS sympathizer, and was inspired by ISIS attacks of years past. So some may question what made ISIS appeal to the attacker?

Growing up the perpetrator Samsudeen had been victim to what he claimed to be violent abuse by authorities in Sri Lanka for being of Tamil ethnicity. Slowly this moulded him into being a “highly distressed and damaged young man” as was described by the psychologists report that helped him receive his refugee status in New Zealand. Over the years he had become radicalized due to his neighbours and slowly began getting “brainwashed” as his mother has described. Eventually, this led to him being arrested for attempting to go to Syria to “Fight for ISIS” as he said to a fellow worshiper in a Mosque.

But recently all these years of hatred and malice had built up to a boiling point within Samsudeen and on September 3rd 2021, he had decided his own fate. At 2:20 pm Samsudeen had arrived in the store, and after standing idly for 10 minutes grabbed a knife from the shelves and began stabbing multiple people before eventually being shot to death after refusing orders to surrender.

Whilst the situation by itself is tragic it also is a case of an epidemic that may be on the rise. As ISIS loses more as a group and an entity, it grows further as an idea and ideology. It’s messages of hate and violence were almost perfect for radicalizing Samsudeen into a monster, as it gave him a purpose and an enemy after being abused during his life. Frequently this is evident with people who carry out attacks in the name of any ideology or religion.

At the end of the day, lone killers are only created by hate, and hate is often sowed by a lack of understanding and information. When people are isolated and told that everyone around them is their enemy, the only result is violence and death. ISIS and its followers will continue to claim to follow Islam and spread violence for the near future, there’s no changing that. The only thing we can do to stop people from falling for their lies as a community is to treat people kindly and be intolerant towards lies. But no matter whether ISIS dies out or lives forever, the book they claim to follow will always be against them, citing “Do not let the hatred of a people lead to an injustice.”

• Bader Majid Al Refai 12E