TerrorismNew Zealand attacker’s “manifesto”: White supremacist, anti-immigration ideology

Brenton Tarrant, the 28-years on Australian mastermind behind the attacks on two mosques in New Zealand on Friday, posted a 74-page “manifesto” explaining his motivations. The manifesto expresses his far right, white supremacist, anti-immigrant ideology.

He describes himself as an ethnonationalist and a fascist.

The document is not much more than a compilation of arguments advanced by white supremacists, anti-immigration extremists in the United States and Europe, often using the very same phrases, such as “White Genocide,” which is popular among American white supremacists, and the “great replacement,” which is used by European extremists.

The great replacement conspiracy theory argues that European Christians are being methodically and systematically replaced by Muslims from the Middle East and Africa as part of a vast plot by Jewish international financiers, a globalist liberal elite, and EU bureaucrats to allow them better control of Europe.

Tarrant calls his manifesto “The Great Replacement.”

The New York Daily News reports that in addition to a rant about white genocide, it lists different aims which acts of violence against Muslims should advance, among them the creation of “an atmosphere of fear” against Muslims.

The document, which darkly hints at a violent white uprisings against Islam, claims that the author had “brief contact” with the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik, and that Breivik gave his “blessing” to the attack.

Tarrant is an Australian, but his manifesto emphasizes his European roots. “The origins of my language is European, my culture is European, my political beliefs are European, my philosophical beliefs are European, my identity is European and, most importantly, my blood is European,” it says.

The document says that the author has grown up in a working-class, low-income family. “I am just a regular white man, from a regular family, who decided to take a stand to ensure a future for my people,” it says. “My parents are of Scottish, Irish and English stock. I had a regular childhood, without any great issues.”

In a question-and-answer section of the document, the author claims he was not seeking fame and was a “private and mostly introverted person”.

In the manifesto, Tarrant says the attack had been planned for two years and that though New Zealand was not the original choice for the attack, the Christchurch location was scoped out three months in advance.

“I only arrived to New Zealand to live temporarily whilst I planned and trained, but I soon found out that New Zealand was as target rich of an environment as anywhere else in the west,” it says.

Tarrant says he wanted to send a message to Muslims that “nowhere in the world is safe,” and the choice of weapon – firearms – was designed to gain maximum publicity.

“I chose firearms for the effect it would have on social discourse, the extra media coverage they would provide and the effect it could have on the politics of United States and thereby the political situation of the world,” it says.