Did Humanity Defeat Hate?

This week I reflect first on the Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney and next on the possible global role of a changing Australia. 

The country’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, called the shooting, which took at least 15 lives on Sunday December 14, “an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism [and] an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location." 

The pictures of suddenly bereaved Jewish Australians who had gone to the famed beach to celebrate the start of their annual Hannukah festival only to lose loved ones to a volley of angry bullets from a father and a son have stirred the world. 

The two shooters didn’t want to kill specific Jews. Any Jew was a good enough target. And headlines across the world were guaranteed. 

The surviving young killer (the father, his accomplice, was shot dead by the police) is reportedly connected to the Islamic State movement. It seems that his father was too. The son, and those who share his sentiments, would have been disappointed by the headlines their assault received. 

Their deed, their names, and their cause took second place. The bystander who fearlessly, soundlessly, and swiftly tackled one of the shooters and snatched his gun snatched the headlines as well. Luckily for the Muslim world, this Australian hero happened to be a Muslim, perhaps of Arab origin, if we go by his name, Ahmed El Ahmed.

NOBLER CAUSE 

Reflection says to me that Ahmed’s cause, the saving of innocent human lives, for which he flung himself into harm’s way, is nobler than any goal of revenge. Nobler also, reflection suggests, than any goal to establish a religious or righteous state, whether such a state be Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, egalitarian or whatever.

That cause, the saving of innocent human lives, demanded dangerous bravery from Ahmed, who came up with it. It demanded other things too. Like a willingness to see people as humans before they are seen as Israelis or Palestinians, Jews or Arabs, Indians or Pakistanis, Hindus or Muslims, members of my tribe or of the enemy tribe, White or Black, male or female.

I said earlier that the fact that the Bondi Beach hero is a Muslim is fortunate for the Muslim world. For the non-Muslim world, that fact is instructive and significant. A Muslim Australian threw caution to the winds, threw himself onto the shooter, and saved Jewish lives. 

Not that he necessarily realized that he was saving Jews. Wishing to save human beings who were being gunned down, including children and the very old, Ahmed knew he had to do something. Which he did. 

Tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, saw the video where a Muslim saves Jewish lives by risking his own life. A billion-dollar campaign for the eradication of Islamophobia could not have done what’s been achieved by the video that captured Ahmed’s response to the danger his fellow humans were facing. Here’s what the BBC reported:

“In a round of radio interviews this morning, the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he'll be visiting Ahmed al Ahmed while he's in hospital.

“Video verified by the BBC showed Ahmed al Ahmed, 43, running at the gunman and seizing his weapon, before turning the gun round on him and forcing his retreat. He was shot multiple times and has since undergone surgery for his wounds.

"It was extraordinary, that footage of essentially creeping up behind a gunman who’s involved in a mass shooting," Albanese tells Sydney's NOVA radio station.

Later news came that Prime Minister Albanese had been to the hospital and thanked Ahmed.

*

Many if not most young people in today’s world will not know that almost until the 1970s there was such a thing as an official “White Australia” policy, designed to discourage or prevent Asians and Africans from inhabiting any piece of Australia’s ample space. 

The Brits were the first from outside Australia to settle in large numbers on our globe’s great southern island. After creating ports, farms, cities, roads, rail lines, hospitals, schools and colleges on that landmass, British Australians saw no reason for other races and nationalities to benefit from what they had put together.

The White Man was not, however, the first human to walk on Australia’s soil. Long before his arrival, numerous indigenous groups lived, worked, sang, drew, and painted there. But having “created” the modern, “livable”, and thriving Australia, the White Man was not eager for the Chinese, the Japanese, the Indians, the Indonesians and others to enjoy the fruits of his pioneering exertions.

A DIFFERENT AUSTRALIA 

But humans move, mix, and trade. Their needs grow. Nations want more than they have. Often they need a fresh supply of people. From the perspective of elderly folk like me, Australia has almost suddenly become a country not just of their indigenous people, or of Whites from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, but also of immigrants from everywhere.

In the 1850s, a gold rush brought many Chinese into Australia. Pacific Islanders were needed for the country’s sugar plantations, Afghan camel-drivers for outback exploration. The start of the 20th century saw the open adoption of a White Australia policy, but the end of World War II gave birth to a different goal: populate or perish. 

There was massive migration from southern and eastern Europe – from Greece, Italy, Spain, the Mediterranean, the Slavic lands, and elsewhere. In 1973, the White Australia goal was formally given up. In the 21st century, Asia has become Australia’s biggest source for people. A great many have moved in from Africa as well.

Between 2013 and 2023, says the home affairs website of the Australian government, the number of Indians permanently migrating to Australia more than doubled, reaching, at the end of June 2023, the figure of 845,800, which constituted more than ten percent of all Australians born outside the land and more than three percent of Australia’s total population.

These numbers, which did not include Indians residing temporarily as students or visitors, would have grown after June 2023.

Unsurprisingly, migrants to Australia have taken their likes and dislikes with them, and also their disputes, and at times their angers and hates. Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-Tamil divide, Myanmar’s ethnic tensions and the longing of the people of Myanmar for democracy, India’s Kashmir question, the drive to turn India into a Hindu state, Imran Khan’s detention in Pakistan and that country’s sectarian conflicts, the drive in Israel to push Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank, the anger in many Palestinians and many Muslims at this drive, and much more is witnessed or discussed in today’s Australia. 

Since Australia is a vigorous democracy, these imported disputes are openly aired there. The Bondi Beach shooting showed that limits can be crossed with devastating consequences.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), police in Sydney have revealed that the two shooters were Naveed Akram, 24, who is in hospital (presumably with gunshot wounds) under police guard, and his father, Sajid Akram, 50, who died exchanging gunfire with officers on Sunday the 14th.

Quoting unnamed officials, media in India state that Sajid Akram was born in Hyderabad, India. In 1998 he migrated to Australia as a student, became an Australian national, and last visited India in 2022. His son Naveed is an Australian national.

CHUNKS OF THEIR LIVES 

If we humans carry our grudges with us to distant parts of the world, we can transport goodwill and kindness as well. I am only one of many Indians who from personal knowledge can speak of the service in India of a number of Australians who have given chunks of their lives and hearts to be of help in India and to Indians.

The Sydney shooting is therefore of deep distress to me, as it is to people everywhere. Having also visited Australia a few times, though not very recently, I can testify to the warmth and goodwill in the Australian people for the rest of the world.

Most countries today are less uniform than they were. The “world” has entered everywhere. But Australia may be especially suited for demonstrating the possibility of partnership beyond race or religion. 

Australia loves sports. It loves the spirit of equality. It favors frankness and frowns on tipping. If inclusiveness, free speech, courtesy, and mutual respect are to regain the global prestige they enjoyed until fairly recently, a significant role may have to be played by Australia.

Before ending, let me provide a link, with the composer’s permission, to the wonderful words and music of the ancient Tamil song Yathum Oore Yavarrum Kelir, or “Every town is my town, everyone is my relative.” Perhaps written more than two thousand years ago, the words, translated into English by a South Indian professor, have been put to music by the distinguished Australian composer, Penelope Thwaites.

I must answer the question in the heading. Humanity may not have defeated hate in Sydney last Sunday -- at least 15 men and women perished. But it shamed hate and put it on the back foot.