I’m angry. We’re all angry.
Perhaps that’s part of the problem.
At the moment, we’re angry at two twisted individuals on a Bondi footbridge who suddenly turned our country into something it isn’t. Or perhaps it is, and we simply haven’t noticed. We only notice what we must in this ugly billionaires’ world of unceasing noise.
We like to think Australia is largely a peaceable nation at the bottom of the planet that minds its own business and doesn’t get involved in dictatorships, or chemical weapons, or wars on its own soil. That’s the commonly held mindset, except for the wars on its own soil involving the killing of thousands of indigenous peoples in the frontier wars. But it hasn’t happened in our lifetime, so we tend to put it in the Unfortunate History basket and move on. Yes, peaceable is the way we like to think of ourselves. We only notice what we need to.
But at the moment we’re angry because we don’t know which path to take through all of this. Because whatever path we cautiously pick through, whatever opinion we may foster, it will never be the right one for some. We are never right because we are all angry and yelling and sad and convinced our view is the right one. Perhaps our collective anger is the problem. Perhaps it’s also part of the solution. Righteous anger can sometimes be a good thing. Good trouble.
The American novelist, Emma Lockhart Jenkins once wrote: “Tragedy is not glamorous… it doesn’t play out in life as it does on a stage or between the pages of a book. It is neither a punishment meted out nor a lesson conferred. Its horrors are not attributable to one single person. Tragedy is ugly and tangled, stupid and confusing.”
Ugly and tangled. Stupid and confusing. That is where we are.
You can get tangled and confused but still be angry at this. You can be even angrier at the political and media fall-out as well; an incessant game of ugly politicians with uglier mouths screeching their partisan points into the void in the belief they can use the bodies of the dead to win the culture wars. It’s low stuff, but as some elements of politics have shown us over the past few days, no low is too low to snuffle in the sewer for points when you’re tanking in the polls.
Some of our media have shown us the best they can be. Some have shown us the worst. Be angry at Sky News, first on the scene with microphones at the ready to foster more loud, cheap headlines, more division, more points for Sharri. Be angry at NineFax and their bibbed, spoon-fed opinion columnists who like to write hagiographies to Prime Minister’s wives and who have yet again, slothfully parroted the bile fed by their parasitic political hosts. These hacks behave as they have always done, as corporate shills, convincing themselves in their artificial, self-reflection-free world, that they have nothing to be sorry for, that their ugliness has not added to the unrest. But do not be angry with the genuine good our media have done over the past few days in their reporting. Be glad the good ones are still there. Celebrate them.
Be angry at Benjamin Netanyahu, a man Israelis voted in as their leader, a fugitive from the International War Crimes Commission, a man who orders and celebrates the incineration of innocent children in refugee camp tents, who is now bobbing up to lecture Australia on morals and the sanctity of human life.
But also remember that Netanyahu does not speak for the Jewish people of Australia, or worldwide. Do not conflate Jewishness with support of Israel’s actions and atrocities. Do not hold each of them accountable for Israel. Remember that to be Jewish is to be part of a broad cross-spectrum of people and opinions and adherences. Be angry alongside your Jewish brothers and sisters for this event. Weep with them. You may not know who you weep with, but that is tragedy – ugly and tangled.
Be angry at the great white ghost of Australia’s political theatre, John Howard, wheeled out like a lost Weekend At Bernie’s extra to perform for media content and angertainment via a shared script from the conservative outrage machine. The same John Howard who was Prime Minister in April 1996 when a lone gunman in Port Arthur massacred 35 people. Not one political leader back then stooped to the level Howard is now. No politician blamed another. No low is too low though in this world of the ugly billionaires.
Perhaps the NineFax columnists and their ahistorical colleagues have forgotten that the 1995 Labor leader Kim Beazley stood side-by-side with John Howard in the days and weeks following that massacre, as did the then leader of the Australian Democrats, Cheryl Kernot. These leaders spoke of nothing but bipartisan support and the need for a unified approach. They demonstrated political consensus in the face of a national tragedy and helped galvanise a nation.
But all Australia sees now is John Howard the blame vampire, encouraged by recreational grief hijacker, Sussan Ley. Yes, the corporate media cry, we can fill the airwaves with John Howard for people desperate to hear from a decrepit racist who marched us into a war that didn’t exist. We can add his uninformed views, his unwanted opinion to the tragedy. We can platform the same three-inch man who recently said, “Multiculturalism is a concept that I’ve always had trouble with”, the same man who told Australia to limit Asian immigration, and we can cheer him as the champion of racial unity. Yes, they cry – after a tragedy fuelled by racism and ignorance, surely we can add more racism and ignorance to help our national healing.
Tragedy is stupid and confusing.
Should we be angry at the head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, a man who appears to spend his working hours seeking media headlines and providing moral-panic content to journalists? We do not know why ASIO dropped the ball with these two heinous individuals, or if some faults lie with others. We do know that intelligence resources are finite and that humans are fallible. But we also know that Burgess bragged to Australians only last month about ASIO’s handle on international conspiracies and other fabulous James Bondian news editor fantasies, all the while ignoring the very real threats cooking away in the boring backblocks of suburban Sydney. We can be angry that an intelligence organisation’s leader, one who has dedicated years to courting publicity at every opportunity, is now curiously silent when explanations and leadership are needed.
We can be angry at the political connivance of Jillian Segal, a woman who wasted no time leaping upon the chance to ride the bandwagon as chief lobbyist and apologist for Israel. Even her official, obdurate statement mirrored something straight out of Netanyahu’s notebook. After the horrific events of Sunday, when the Jewish community was reeling in shock, her first thought was to promote her chief causes of decrying a peaceful demonstration on the Sydney Harbour Bridge attended by thousands of peaceful Australians, and of demonising universities. Men who gun down innocent people on beachfronts rarely join marches for peace to end bloodshed.
The two gunmen, one an unemployed labourer, his father, an alleged shop worker, did not march for peace, they did not learn their hatred on the grounds of universities, nor did they create their unhinged mindsets in the art galleries or cultural institutions of Australia. But ever the divider, Segal failed to allow those highly obvious facts to deter her.
No words from Segal for many months about the public displays of Nazism on our streets. Nothing from her about her husband funding Advance, an Australian organisation that fuels racism and sows the ugly seeds of social discord. No, such is Segal’s alleged leadership and empathy that her first thoughts were to conflate people concerned about Israel’s wholesale slaughter of children, as the same people who were somehow to blame for Sunday’s atrocity. Not her mentor Netanyahu, the world’s largest fueler of antisemitism, not her husband’s bankrolling of racists, not her own deliberate avoidance of the real Nazi antisemitism in our streets, no it was all the “fault” of those who want peace. Tragedy is ugly and tangled.
The fault lies with the two gunmen: driven by toxic organised religion, online masculinity harvesters, ancient grievances and mental illness. Ugly and tangled. Stupid and confusing. It should not need to be spelled out that there is nothing remotely racist about criticism of Israel’s genocidal actions, but for the simple-minded, it should be. It should also not need to be spelled out that crossing the line from protesting against a nation and its barbaric actions, to blaming an entire religion and its people, is also to be shunned.
Be angry at the right things. It may be hard to see how Sussan Ley can get more desperate and tasteless than immediately politicking and point scoring as people lay wounded in hospitals. But when she is eventually kicked to the kerb, this should be her defining moment – cheap stunts of disgusting opportunism when she could have chosen principled leadership. Albanese to his credit, has shown a rarely seen side of him; rational and calm leadership. He is in an invidious position, not the least of it due to the immediate and coordinated culture warring by Australian conservatives and the usual media managers and editors who hunt their employees for sport, who are now suddenly pretending they’ve played no part in fanning racist rhetoric in Australia. The people who teach you to hate everyone now want to sell you something.
Be angry about the senseless loss. Be heartbroken. Be despairing. Be grief stricken. Be compassionate. Look for the real leaders because they are rarely to be found in the pages and airspace of our corporate media, or from the tainted mouths of some of our politicians. Antisemitism existed in the world before October 2023, and tragically, it will continue to exist. The majority of Australians reject antisemitism too. The majority of Australians are peaceful. The majority of Australians also have the right to peacefully protest against Israel and its genocidal policies. Not all Jewish people support the actions of Israel. Religious extremism is evil. Hatred creates more hatred and violence creates more violence. It was ever thus.
Tragedy can be like that.
https://theshot.net.au/uncategorized/dont-look-back-in-anger/