🔗 Share this article

As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear 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 no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in people – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and cultural unity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Unity, light and love was the message of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look quite the same again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and consistently alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and grief we require each other more than ever.

The reassurance of community – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But sadly, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and the community will be elusive this extended, draining summer.