The Immediate Impact and Terror of the Bondi Attack Is Giving Way to Anger and Division. We Must Seek Out the Light.

As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification 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 nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate 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 particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of faith.

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

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

Witness the harmful message of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

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

The reassurance of community – the human glue 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 elusive this long, enervating summer.