My son was seven or so when, after long resisting the urge to ask, I finally asked him the question that had previously been posed to him on interminable occasions by an interminable number of family members, an interminable number of friends and an interminable number of church members: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
He issued an intentionally demonstrable sigh of frustration at once again being asked, at seven years-old, to project the trajectory of a future that lay, at that moment, far beyond the horizon, looked up at me and, in perhaps the most revealing way he had ever responded to the question, said, “Taller.”
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The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, stands out in any gathering of world leaders if only because she is one of the few women to presently lead a major country. She also stands out because of her relative youth—at 38, she is the youngest woman to presently lead a major country, the first woman leader in three decades to give birth while in office and the first woman leader to ever tote her relative newborn onto the floor of the United Nations General Assembly. But those biographical attributes pale relative to the personal attributes of self-confidence, poise, intellect, steady hand and command of policy issues that have marked her as someone to watch since she arrived on the global stage in the fall of 2017. Add to all of those qualities an understated, genuinely personal sensitivity to her fellow Kiwis and it is easy to understand her almost meteoric rise to the top position in New Zealand’s government.
Using all of the arrows in her considerable quiver, the Prime Minister, on this weekend past, proved herself more than worthy of the confidence placed in her by both New Zealand’s ruling party and New Zealand’s populace. Amidst the toxic combination of horror, grief, fear, anger and confusion that followed the attack by a white supremacist on Muslims attending their traditional Friday prayer services at two mosques in Christchurch—fifty dead, dozens more hospitalized—Ms. Ardern’s words and actions were, from the get-go, absolutely flinch-free, pitch-perfect and preternaturally genuine. They were also quintessentially Kiwi, both charting and helming the course that would guide her nation’s remarkable response to a tragedy that put it in uncharted, tumultuous waters. Dispensing with what has become tiresome political choreography—“thoughts and prayers, best of luck to ya’, yada, yada, yada”—she said and did what a leader with the best interests of her/his countrymen at heart would say and do.
In order to unite the country in what first became an outpouring of national grief and then evolved into an outpouring of world-wide grief, Ms. Ardern prioritized the message that private prejudices should be transcended by New Zealand’s national identity. She pulled no punches and refused to descend into the shadows of embarrassing political gobbledy-gook best exemplified by a heinous statement such as “there were fine people on both sides.” Instead, she framed the massacre for what it was: A terrorist attack not just on the Muslim community, not just on an immigrant community, but on the nation itself—on New Zealand’s values and way of life. And did so with an eloquent tweet unlike anything Americans have come to expect from the divisive, derisive, grievance-based Twitter account belonging to the current occupant of the White House: “Many of those affected will be members of our migrant communities—New Zealand is their home—they are us.”
Consider again what she said about New Zealand’s immigrant communities: “New Zealand is their home—they are us!”
They. Are. Us.
As American civic life devolves under the transactional, autocratic impulses of a corrupt, racist, incoherent president who keeps constant company with our darkest angels and regularly calls them forth in his relatively small but visceral—read reflexively angry, fearful, pearl-clutching, self-debasing—voter base of white supplicants, watching Kiwis respond to the example of indisputable moral authority modeled by their country’s leadership has been like a breath of fresh air.
In myriad ways, New Zealanders were united in both word and action to affirm that the white supremacist attacker—whose “manifesto” mentioned Donald Trump as an inspiration—in no way gave voice to their common, defining values: Flowers, personal notes, small items serving as symbols of solidarity were piled on top of each other as memorial tributes all across both the North Island and the South Island (as well as on sidewalks in front of mosques around the world) grew in both number and size; people waited in line for hours in order to just sign condolence books; donations large and small for the affected families flooded into both the Al Noor and Linwood Mosques in Christchurch; non-Muslim women—following the example of their prime minister—covered their heads with scarves to show that they were “as one” with their hajib-wearing Muslim sisters; on the Sunday following the terror attack, congregations throughout the country sang the triumphant national anthem of New Zealand which envisions “men of every creed and race” gathering before the face of God in a “free land.”
Donald Trump, as we have painfully learned, is apparently incapable of speaking words of compassion or comfort from the heart. Hence, during his phone call to Ms. Ardern, he read remarks written for him and, in a tone dripping with his typical insincerity, asked what he “could do.” The prime minister, in words that quickly went viral around the globe, suggested that he could express his “sympathy and love to all Muslim communities.”
Needless to say, the American Disgrace—asked later if he thought the white supremacy movement or white supremacist terrorism “was a problem,” he incomprehensibly answered, “No, I don’t think so” and then lied by claiming he didn’t “know much about it”—had no further comment on the Christchurch slaughter, save a perfunctory description of it as “horrible.”
Given Trump’s xenophobic antipathy toward “Muslim communities” both in the U.S. and abroad, there was little reason to think that the prime minister expected anything else from him. Or that she cared enough to give it another thought—after all, she was busy lifting onto her small but powerful shoulders a stunned, grief-filled, jittery-nerved country and, with a determination that was almost breathtaking to watch, carrying it through the valley of the shadow.
There was no time to give further thought to poseurs like Donald Trump.
There never is.
There never should be.
On the Thursday following the agony of the previous Friday, I heard via the BBC that Ms. Ardern had delivered on her emotional promise—made almost immediately after the mosque shootings in Christchurch—to enact new gun control measures post haste. Put that in context: On April 10, 26 days after the Christchurch shootings, New Zealand’s legislature—with only one dissenting vote—passed a gun control bill banning military-style weapons. It goes into effect immediately.
I thought about the still-grieving parents at Sandy Hook, to whom the bought-and-sold-to-the-NRA Republicans offered no comfort other than “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” I thought about Barack Obama, tears of grief in his eyes and righteous anger in his voice, telling the nation that he had failed to convince Republicans to help pass even the most humble background-check bill that might “make our country a safer place.” I thought about the Parkland kids, especially Emma Gonzalez, who spoke for millions of Americans—young and old—when she led thousands of other young people in her poignant, angry, righteous chant, “I call…B.S.!”
I thought again about Jacinda Ardern and her fellow Kiwis: It took 7 days for them—in response to an attack on an ethnic/religious minority that makes up only 1% of their population, for God’s sake—to mobilize their grief/anger into beginning to write and kindle support for the action that would become law 19 days later. And I thought about the people of the United States, who know that such mobilization to make our country “a safer place” will never happen in our lifetimes. Never.
Unable to return to the Al Noor Mosque for Friday prayers a week after the killings, Muslim worshippers gathered outside their place of worship for a memorial service to be followed by their traditional service. Worshipping with them was their prime minister, accompanied by a massive crowd—estimated at 20,000—of non-Muslim Kiwis who filled Hagley Park in Christchurch, which is just across the street from the mosque. Ms. Ardern again wore a black headscarf, as did thousands of women—“from police officers to TV news presenters to everyday citizens”—who wished to show their respect for and solidarity with their fellow New Zealanders.
Following brief words from the prime minister that began the memorial service—“When any part of the body suffers, the whole body feels pain. New Zealand mourns with you; we are one.”—the “adhan,” which is the Muslim call to prayer, was broadcast on national television and radio stations across the country and followed by two minutes of silent remembrance.
It was a stunning, moving scene made only moreso by the fact that it played out not only in Christchurch, but at Muslim places of worship across both the South and North Islands, where diverse crowds—“from students to leather-clad bikers”—memorialized the dead and honored the living by performing the “haka,” a traditional ceremonial dance common to the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand and a fundamental part of the country’s cultural/national identity. A cultural/national identity so embedded in a united citizenry and so fiercely protected by a young prime minister clearly guided by the values inherent in it that, rather than being sullied by murderous acts inspired by an ideology conceived and born in human sewers, it emerged as an even brighter and stronger beacon, bearing witness to the power of righteous leadership and bedrock moral authority.
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The tallest building in the world is Dubai’s Burj Khalifaworld. [Think Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol]
Late last Friday night, a photograph of the building was posted on Twitter by Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. It showed the tallest building in the world adorned with an enormous image of Jacinda Ardern, her head covered with a black scarf, embracing a grieving Muslim woman. Two words appeared above them: “Salam” and “Peace.”
Accompanying the photo was a message: “Thank you @jacindaardern and New Zealand for your sincere empathy and support that has won the respect of 1.5 billion Muslims after the terrorist attack that shook the Muslim community around the world.”
I’m sure that Ms. Ardern and her fellow Kiwis appreciated the kind words. I’m equally sure the Kiwis were right proud to see their prime minister respectfully pictured up-and-down one side of the tallest building in the world. But my real guess is that they didn’t need to see that projected image to know just how tall Ms. Ardern now stands in the eyes of those of us who know that what our world perhaps most needs at this dark moment in history is authentic leadership grounded in authentic moral/ethical authority. And let me add a shout-out to the Kiwis themselves, who knew righteous leadership when they saw it and, as a people, followed the example it set.
I don’t know if, when she was seven or so, Jacinda Ardern’s greatest desire per what she would be “when she grew up” was “Taller.” But, even if it wasn’t, she is “taller” at this moment than any world leader whom I can think of. And all who make up #KiwiNation grew taller right along with her.