The Initial Shock and Fear of the Bondi Attack Is Giving Way to Anger and Division. It Is Imperative We Look For the Hope.

As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, grief and horror is shifting to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

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

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

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

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a formidable job 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 probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, melancholy, confusion and loss we need each other now 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 indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.