{"id":36483,"date":"2021-09-06T03:00:32","date_gmt":"2021-09-05T18:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/sep\/06\/as-a-sri-lankan-new-zealander-i-know-my-adopted-country-can-find-compassion-amid-terror"},"modified":"2021-09-06T03:00:32","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T18:00:32","slug":"as-a-sri-lankan-new-zealander-i-know-my-adopted-country-can-find-compassion-amid-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=36483","title":{"rendered":"As a Sri Lankan New Zealander, I know my adopted country can find compassion amid terror"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite revulsion at the Auckland attacker, New Zealanders have the capacity to recognise that we all have a complex identity  <\/p>\n<p>I took some old, blunt kitchen knives to a second-hand shop a few months ago while decluttering. They politely declined the items, citing their policy against selling anything that could be used as a weapon.<\/p>\n<p>This shop\u2019s policy now seems prescient. On a sunny spring afternoon, while West Auckland shoppers took pains to protect themselves against the coronavirus in a locked-down city, a terribly visible threat grabbed some sharp steel from the shelves, ran screaming down the aisles, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/sep\/03\/man-shot-dead-in-new-zealand-after-injuring-people-in-supermarket-police-say\">started stabbing random shoppers<\/a> in the name of an invisible cloud of hate, alienation, radicalisation, distrust, anger, violence.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/sep\/06\/as-a-sri-lankan-new-zealander-i-know-my-adopted-country-can-find-compassion-amid-terror\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite revulsion at the Auckland attacker, New Zealanders have the capacity to recognise that we all have a complex identity  I took some old, blunt kitchen knives to a second-hand shop a few months ago while decluttering. They politely declined the i&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2540,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[491,56,61,674],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-migration","category-new-zealand","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sri-lanka"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2540"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36484,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36483\/revisions\/36484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}