IS THIS US?

IT WAS AFTER her brother was murdered that Aya Al-Umari started training in martial arts. Hussein Al-Umari was one of 51 people killed by a white supremacist who opened fire at two Christchurch mosques on 15 March 2019. Aya, a 35-year-old bank worker with blonde hair and a wicked sense of humour, got her orange belt in krav maga, a combination of techniques for self-defense. When Al Noor mosque announced a volunteer security detail, she rushed to sign up so she could protect the place where her older brother had died.

But physical empowerment could only protect her from so much. On 28 December 2020, she and her mother were shopping for makeup in a Rangiora department store when another shopper heard them chatting in Arabic. The shopper accosted them, demanding to know whether they were “born and bred” New Zealanders. For an instant, Aya was torn. She knew if she said something, it would upset her mother. “But if I didn’t say something, the woman would say it to someone else,” says Aya. “I thought, we keep giving