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The Immediate Impact and Terror of the Bondi Attack Is Giving Way to Anger and Discord. We Must Look For the Light.
As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood feels, unfortunately, like no other.
It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.
Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and deep division.
Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.
If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.
And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound fragility.
This is a time when I lament not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.
And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.
When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.
Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for lightness.
Unity, hope and love was the message of faith.
‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’
And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.
Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.
Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.
Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the hope and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.
Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?
How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible actors.
In this city of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.
We long right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.
This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.
But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, anger, melancholy, confusion and grief we need each other now more than ever.
The comfort of togetherness – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.
But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.
Ashley Carter
Elara is a seasoned writer and digital nomad who shares her adventures and expertise in lifestyle and technology.
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