The Initial Impact and Terror of the Bondi Attack Is Transitioning to Anger and Discord. We Must Look For the Light.

While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. 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 faith in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear of faith-based persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in people – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and compassion was the essence of belief.

And yet segments of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical chance to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and consistently alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of fear, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we require each other more than ever.

The comfort of togetherness – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.