Focus: A massed choir of 160 students in James Cook High School's Māori immersion unit Puutake sang a specially-composed waiata for leaders of Christchurch's Linwood Mosque, who visited the school one year after the March 2019 attacks. Video / Sylvie Whinray
One year after the Christchurch mosque attacks, the world is still weeping for the 51 people who died.
That was the theme of a moving waiata sung by a mass choir of 160 students at Manurewa's James Cook High School today to two leaders of the Linwood Mosque, one of the two mosques attacked on March 15 last year.
Abdul Aziz Wahabzadah, the man who bravely threw an eftpos machine at the gunman and chased him away from the mosque, told the students that his heart was touched by their "beautiful song".
"This day will always be close to my heart, I will never forget this," he said.
Turuturu Te Ao (The World Weeps) was composed by Hammond Matua, the head of the school's Māori immersion unit Puutake Te Wāhanga Māori, and was adapted from a waiata he wrote just before March 15 in memory of a former teacher who was his mentor, Jerry Hohepa, who died a month earlier.
Students from James Cook High School performed a Waiata composed to remember those who lost their lives in the 2019 massacre. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Puutake students had been rehearsing the song to sing on the last day of last year's Polyfest on March 16, but that day was cancelled after the mosque attacks as the country plunged into mourning.
"Because of the impact that that disaster had, not only on myself but on the students here at the unit, there was a call from our students to compose a song," he said.
"That [the attacks] angered us the most, but the grieving that the Muslim community were going through at that particular time also affected us, and this became a song that let people know that we were also grieving.
"So there were changes in the song, and the context changed. And as soon as the kaupapa changed, it was right, it was fitting. When the topic changed for the waiata to be composed for that incident, then everything just fitted in, right down to the different tones and different vocal arrangements.
"It took two days for that to sound right. Then what it sounded like, it was fitting, it was meant to be."
The waiata speaks of a tai āniwhaniwha, a tsunami.
"In this context it means a tsunami of emotions, the flow of tears not only in this country but right across the world," Matua said.
"Another kupu, word, that occurs is pōkēao, a black cloud or storm."
Two survivors from the 2019 shootings joined local Moslems for the service at James Cook High. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
James Cook principal Grant McMillan said students and staff of the multicultural high school "wrapped around each other" in the days after the attacks because many of them are Muslim.
As well as composing the waiata, staff and students wrote messages of "hope, empathy, sympathy and shared embrace" in two books.
"At some time, we knew that when the time comes we would give them to the people who had been affected," he said.
An imam from Manurewa's Masjid Ayesha Mosque, Abdul Qayyum, said Allah allowed the attack to happen "to test us, to see how much patience we have".
"A time of sadness is a time when we need this kind of support so we feel we are not alone. The whole country is behind us, the whole world is behind us," he said.
Wahabzadah received the books and the waiata with Linwood Mosque chair Ahmed Iqbal Jahangir.
"The amount of love and support that we got from New Zealand, from the New Zealand Government and all over the world, that's what makes us strong, and that's what makes us keep going on with life," he said.
