You arc a downhill left when you approach Bondi Beach from it’s south side, sloping into a horizon which peels away the rolling waves. Bondi Beach is it’s postcard picturesque. A vision of somewhere far away and hard to get to, but here it’s right around the corner.
Bondi is centrally located, Australia’s most famous beach and rather than an oasis at the end of a journey it’s an organised hub of meeting. Life grows out of it rather than towards it. It’s a place mythologised by TV, a name known to every Australian. It’s even famous internationally, a gravitational pull to every backpacker, tourist or out-of-towner. It’s both a centrepoint for those that come, as it is a home to hundreds of families who claim generational lineage.
As much as the Harbour Bridge, Uluru or even the Opera House, Bondi Beach is a symbol of Australia. It’s a placeholder for expectations. An idea for what Australian life is like. That great egalitarian instinct. No matter who you are, what you do, what you believe, how little or how much money you have the sea, sand and sun is equally yours to share. The terrorism denies that symbolism, is an affront to it. Hatred of Jews imported across generations and across borders. Grown elsewhere, ignorant of Australia, but nonetheless here.
Bondi wakes up early, no matter the time, there’s people there. Dotting the sand, the waves, the promenade, the cafe’s, life is constant here. Irish voices, French accents, Germans, tradies, mums, dads, executives, politicians, everyone getting in a coffee, walk and work out before the day begins.
Sunday the 14th was the summer’s day Bondi thrives on. It wasn’t oppressively hot and there was barely a lick of wind. The place was packed. Thousands of people scattered along the kilometre of sand, seated on the kilometre of grass and boozing and eating the stacking streets with faces of cafe’s, restaurants, bars and boutiques.
That bridge, the one from the footage you’ve seen, from where the two gunman took aim, is a constant flow of traffic. It exits you from the north end of Bondi, connects you to the public changing rooms, and opens up to a particularly expansive grassy area. Events are routine and on Sunday it was no different. Hanukkah by the sea. An organised gathering of Jews, and to the shame of Australia, a target.
A father and son combo who told their family they were going on a fishing trip fled to Bondi with a car full of guns, dressed with an ISIS flag, determined to kill as many people as they possibly could. An investigation into a motivation belies the reason. How powerful the Islamic fundamentalist brain rot is, so corrosive and sufficient the promise that this life is not the one you live for, it’s the next one, what you do here will determine how you’re treated there. A hopelessly broken belief system so ambitious in it’s reach yet evidently persuasive.
As of writing this, 16 are dead (including one shooter) and more than 40 are injured. The shooting was indiscriminate. What began as a targeted flourish of bullets turned into a free-for-all. It’s too early for a full accounting for the damage but too late for a more unapologetic hard line.
We’ve been impotently interpreting what religious fundamentalists within our border have been saying for years. Interpreting anything other than what it is. Rationalising it with a ‘that’s not what they mean’. Time after time, words and behaviour that completely deny Australia’s egalitarian instinct. Homes, mosques and gathering places festering idea’s of purpose and the life well lived that couldn’t run further against those of the land they stand on. Where is the Australian backbone to insist a loose conformity that we recognise? You can be both tolerant and reasonable. But I recognise nothing of Australia in fundamentalists, and was not prepared to cede ground to allow a splitting of the difference. Religious freedom isn’t in question here, it’s religious fundamentalism when your worldview clashes so severely with those around you, silo’d into narrower and narrower groups. A closed hole from where you began and where you were before the plunge. Evolving from a decent muslim to the one who runs away with his dad to murder kids.
One of the great benefits to our island nation is how tight a control we can enforce for who comes here and who doesn’t. Should you whiff of anything to do with a tendency towards religious violence, you’re free to find a home elsewhere. There is no place for you in Australia. If you congregate in public and chant ‘death to the jews’, you’ve punched your ticket. See you later. This would be radical policy, but we really are so far away from everything else that we can weather a political storm to much less damage were you to make the same policy elsewhere.
Jews were targeted for slaughter at a children’s event at a symbolic image of Australia. How powerful the brain rot and how devastating we’ve let it fester.
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