The Initial Shock and Terror of the Bondi Shooting Is Transitioning to Anger and Division. It Is Imperative We Seek Out the Light.

As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

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

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, grief and horror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

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

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of faith.

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

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

Witness the harmful rhetoric of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

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

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these times of fear, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other now more than ever.

The comfort of community – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in public life and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.