🔗 Share this article

While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official 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 sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has let us down so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

‘Our public places may not look quite the same again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

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

Observe the harmful message of disunity from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, confusion and loss 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 tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.