New Zealanders fortunately have never really experienced much in the way of terrorism on their shores. Perhaps the attack on the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, in 1985 was the closest we have come to it in Godzone.
That however was a targeted attack by the French government intelligence services under Opération Satanique. It was not designed to terrorise the population at large. So Kiwis - and especially the native born ones who have not lived overseas for any appreciable length of time - really cannot appreciate what much of the rest of the world has to go through on a daily basis.
Perhaps because of this, Kiwis seem quite unable to identify with the victims of terrorism: neither the direct victims nor those indirect victims who suffer the fear of an attack. It would seem that the majority of the population sees an attack as an unrealistic scenario in NZ. At this time, this is probably a reasonably valid assumption.
This nevertheless is no excuse for the behaviour I have witnessed repeatedly here, which is to make light of, crack jokes about and generally belittle the victims overseas.
This apparent total lack of an ability to identify with the situation overseas dehumanises the victims and makes Kiwis no better than the aggressors such as ISIL. Kiwis are essentially shallow individuals with no understanding. Don’t know, don’t care, not listening, la-la-la-la .....
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