COMMENT | It bothers me when people say the massacre of Muslims in their place of worship in Christchurch was an attack on humanity. This was an attack on Muslims. This was an attempt to further religious and racial division between (white) Christian communities and Islamic communities in the West.

The killer made this clear in his manifesto. He specifically chose a close-knit community, where his actions would cause the most damage in the sense that people would begin to question their values and government policies.

When people say this was an attack on humanity, it blurs the line between the agenda of the perpetrator and the beliefs of his targets. It fuels a narrative that slips into easy political and social bromides, while diminishing the danger of the ideology that was the basis of his crimes. It was not an attack against humanity; it was an attack against Muslims.

You do not need to generalise the incident to make it accessible for people to empathise with the survivors. The sooner the West wakes up to the fact that right-wing white nationalism poses a greater threat than Islamic terrorism...