🔗 Share this article

As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of faith.

‘Our public places may not appear exactly as they did again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require each other more than ever.

The reassurance of togetherness – the human glue 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 the community will be elusive this long, enervating summer.