Christchurch: Gunman Tarrant’s racist beliefs bred during European travels

Brenton Tarrant in Turkey.

Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant might have been born and bred in Grafton, but the ideology that inspired him came straight from ancient racisms of Europe and the fanaticism of medieval Christians.

With Australia’s political class poised for a national bout of cultural self-loathing following Tarrant’s Christchurch terror attack, it is worth noting there is zero evidence the man paid any attention to anything said or done in this country since 2014.

That was the year Tarrant left Australia. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said Tarrant had spent just 45 days in Australia in the past three years.

Tarrant’s formative cultural and ideological experiences appear to have occurred entirely during his travels in Europe.

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His 74-page manifesto is shot through with reference to European terror attacks, the NATO-led war on Kosovo, the 2017 French general election won by “globalist’’ President Emmanuel Macron, and the need to purge Turkey from NATO, thereby restoring it to “a united European army’’.

He is obsessed with the concept of Muslim “invaders’’ and shares beliefs common to racists across Europe that the high birth rate of Muslim migrants means the continent is effectively committing a kind of slow-motion, demographic suicide.

The likelihood that children born of first-generation migrants will identify as French, Belgian, German or Spanish — as opposed to “Muslim’’ — is lost on a bigot such as Tarrant. In his blood-and-soil view of the world, race is destiny. A Moroccan Muslim will remain a Moroccan Muslim no matter how quickly he learns La Marseillaise or how fluent his French becomes. So will his kids.

Tarrant talks about the Siege of Vienna in 1683 when the Hapsburgs repulsed the Ottoman invaders, and foreshadows a new Christian crusade.

It’s vile stuff, but nowhere does it mention Pauline Hanson, Operation Sovereign Borders, Sky After Dark or any of the other right-wing villains being fitted up as accessories before the fact. The word “Australia’’ or “Australian’’ appears just 11 times.

By contrast, “France’’ or “French’’ appears 22 times, the “United States’’ or “America’’ 16 times, while “Europe’’ or “European’’ gets 102 mentions.

There are no indications right-wing extremism is raging out of control in Australia. Of the 15 terrorist plots disrupted since 2014, one was right-wing related.

Anyone drawing a straight line between the likes of Fraser Anning and the Christchurch horror is, on available evidence, drawing a very, very long bow.