Kiwi rock musician Jon Toogood opened up about how the Christchurch attacks affected him, as a converted Muslim.
The Shihad lead singer said on The Rock Morning Rumble on Wednesday he had spent the past two weeks processing the attack that killed 50 people in two Christchurch mosques.
He said he was shaken to the core by the events of Friday March 15.
"It was an attack on my Muslim faith, my brothers and sisters, and I have a four-year-old son and we've been to Jumu'ah before to pray at a masjid, at a mosque, and it just made me go 'whoa, that could've been us'.
"It really made me hold my kids very tightly, I love them very much and my heart bleeds for those people that lost their children and their own lives."
He said it was hard to be not only Muslim, but a Kiwi of any faith in the past weeks.
"It was an attack on New Zealand as well, and the idea of New Zealand. I grew up as a secular atheist, always comfortable, I had friends from all over the world and we never questioned it, it was just whatever you believed was cool."
Toogood said New Zealand has done a good job since the attack to make Muslim people feel accepted.
"I sat in a room with rabbis, Christians, atheists, Muslims, all sitting together going 'this is not the world we want to live in, what do we do about it, how do we stop this from happening,' and it was nice to see everyone on the same page."
He also said it was nice to see the Muslim community "not having to be apologetic for some crazy person's crime."
"When someone starts believing that they're better than everybody else, it doesn't matter what faith you are or what you believe in, it's all the same thing. It's all fear and hate."
He said the conversation from this point needs to be one of respect between all communities.
"It's okay to disagree but you have to remember when you're disagreeing that everyone's human. We're now realising our shared humanity."
Newshub.
