The Initial Shock and Terror of the Bondi Attack Is Transitioning to Rage and Discord. It Is Imperative We Look For the Hope.

As Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple 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 anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism 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 depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in our capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Unity, light and compassion was the message of belief.

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures 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 looking for the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

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

We long right now for understanding and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, confusion and grief we need each other now more than ever.

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

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