Jacinda Ardern just proved typically 'feminine' behaviour is powerful
Donald Trump telephoned a grieving Jacinda Ardern in the aftermath of New Zealand’s largest ever mass murder. The President asked what the United States could do and received an answer he can’t have been expecting. “Sympathy and love for all Muslim communities,” the Prime Minister told him.
Jacinda Ardern has been widely praised as doing a magnificent job in a situation no national leader should have to face. In response to unimaginable horror, she is deliberately employing language of empathy not hate. She has chosen a message of togetherness instead of reaching for the easy, crude politics of division that have worked so effectively, and for so many, in the past.
In these circumstances, kindness is a radical act.
The traditional script for a world leader reacting to a terrorist attack on home soil, is one of power and retribution. To prosecute an "us and them" case. By way of example, you might recall that US President George Bush wanted to "find out who did this and kick their ass" in the wake of 9/11. He later declared that Osama Bin Laden would be taken "dead or alive".
Ardern is taking markedly different approach. She’s barely wasted a word on the perpetrator of this crime. Instead, focusing her energies on the victims, their loved ones and a nation that needs to heal. By declaring ‘they are us’, she set the tone for how people should respond to this tragedy. The unspoken message? Victims of this crime may not share your faith or ethnicity, but they are New Zealanders and that is all that matters.
More: https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/jacinda-ardern-just-proved-typically-feminine-behaviour-is-powerful-20190318-p5157k.html