At 38, she’s pitched progressive politics and her nation’s charms to Stephen Colbert and the “Today” show. Vogue magazine called her the “anti-Trump.”Now, with the massacre of 50 people at two mosques by a gunman espousing anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant hatred, Ms. Ardern is back in the international spotlight, but the glamour is gone. Instead, she speaks for New Zealand at a moment of national pain, her vision of kindness in politics tested by the worst mass murder in her country’s modern history. Ms. Ardern herself had been emailed a copy of the manifesto minutes before the massacre began. In a country of less than five million people, prized for its safety and natural beauty, people had the same refrain: Things like this do not happen here.

Source: New York Times March 16, 2019 15:02 UTC