The Immediate Impact and Fear of the Bondi Shooting Is Giving Way to Anger and Discord. It Is Imperative We Look For the Light.

As Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has let us down so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers 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 fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the message of belief.

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

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

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable task 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 significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

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

The reassurance of togetherness – the binding force 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 hard to find this extended, draining summer.