The Quiet Work of Holding a Country Together
Reflections on community, responsibility, and resisting the pull of division after terror threatens to tear us apart
For the last week I have struggled to do anything.
My sales target has felt unmanageable. My mental health has been shaky. My will to do anything but dwell on the horror of last weekend’s terror attack has been non-existent.
I go to NSW to be with my family for Christmas and then to Hong Kong to visit my girlfriend’s parents in a few days. But I simply can’t care right now.
This tragedy, this loss of human life is not just a talking point.
This isn’t a headline that will come and go before I move onto the NRL pre-season or the next big rap beef.
On Sunday the 14th of December, 2025, our lives changed forever.
I feel that to my core.
The tentacles of extremism found their way onto our land and into our hearts in the most egregious way possible.
It was already here, but now it’s mask had been removed.
Two gunmen, possessed with extremist ideologies and hatred in their heart took aim at a Jewish celebration on Bondi Beach— a setting that is globally recognised for peace and excellence was quickly transformed into a war zone.
Since the Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023, the word antisemitism has been bandied around pretty haphazardly, and I do not use it lightly at all, but in this instance it is 100% justified.
This was an antisemitic attack, targeting the Jewish people.
But not just the Jewish people, this attack targeted the Australian people. My home and my people.
Moments like this shift the air.
People walk a little faster.
You sense hesitation behind the eyes of strangers.
The typical Australian response of ‘she’ll be right mate’ is suddenly dowsed in a monsoon of hate, fear, terror and pessimism.
And honestly? That’s fair.
Fear is ancient, it does what it’s designed to do—it keeps us out of danger and it helps us navigate perceived threats.
But if we let fear keep speaking after the danger passes, it becomes something far more destructive than a single act of violence.
Fear can:
Pull communities apart
Redraw the lines between people
Drain us of our sense of optimism and hope
Turn neighbours into categories and individuals into symbols
Suspect innocent co-inhabitants of crimes they haven’t committed
And that’s what I am really scared of…
Because the real threat in the aftermath of a tragedy isn’t only what happened—it’s what we might let happen next.
A Quick Anecdote Before I Progress
In 2015 I was on my way back from Circular Quay in Sydney’s centre.
I was boarding a train home after a day trip.
A few months earlier the Lindt Cafe siege had taken place in Martin Place (just a few stops away), claiming the lives of 3 people.
The man was Iranian born and seemed to have some political motivations but was eventually diagnosed as “a very unusual case—a rare mix of extremism, mental health problems and plain criminality.”
Nevertheless, Australia had been rocked by our first look at Jihadist violence.
The country was on high alert, our senses were tingling, our collective heart rates and temperature rose—the tension was high.
As the train pulled up, I stood to the side and allowed the others to alight.
Whilst waiting patiently to the side, I noticed a young woman wearing a Nijab (head scarf and full face covering) exit the train. I observed her briefly, and then with no warning or pre-determination my mind started firing off thoughts.
“Fuckin terrorist”
“What is she hiding”
“Hope she doesn’t blow us up”
My internal monologue started spiralling into a dark and hateful place and I could not stop it from going there.
I had to literally intervene and tell my brain to ‘shut the fuck up!’. Immediately stepping in to check myself, talk myself back from that place and remind myself of who I am and what I value.
This person was harmless and innocent and I had internally vilified her.
I felt horrible.
The propaganda machine had worked.
Nothing actually happened on this day, I did not vilify this person, in fact I was courteous and moved out of the way as they exited the train.
But given the wrong context, it could’ve been very different.
That’s what fear does.
It lays dormant if unchecked. It bubbles under our skin and in the dark places of our mind until given the freedom to expose itself.
And that is what I am afraid of taking place in the hearts and minds of everyday Australians right now. The fight for our values is already underway, so I write to you in hope that you do not let your thoughts be poisoned by fear.
Australia Has Always Lived on a Kind of Social Ease
Part of what makes Australia feel like… Australia… is the sense that everyone more or less belongs here. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not without tension, but comfortably enough that the default setting is trust.
Like every modern country, we have a dark history of division.
Our indigenous Australians still feel the weight of this division now 300 years on from our countries colonisation by the first settlers.
As I said, it’s not perfect, but for the most part we live in harmony.
A harmony that is seldom seen around the world.
We’re a country full of people who came from elsewhere—or whose parents and grandparents did. And somehow, across all that difference, we created a culture that feels casual, familiar, and shared.
That ease is worth protecting.
Because if we lose it, we lose more than safety—we lose our identity.
The Two Communities Carrying the Heaviest Load Right Now
Australia is in mourning.
The broader country is processing shock at the impossible death and horror that just took place in one of our most sacred settings.
But two groups in particular are carrying a very different weight:
Jewish Australians
As I said, this was an antisemitic act.
Purely disgusting violence that was perpetrated against the Jewish people—they were the target and the most heavily impacted group.
Their grief is deep, and their fear is real.
Despite how I feel about the genocide in Gaza, this blatant act of antisemitism has been perpetrated in an environment where straight up Jew hate has been pervasive.
The Jewish people are not to blame for what is happening in Gaza—the extremist far right blood thirsty Netanyahu government is. The inclusion and hate toward all Jewish people since October 7th gave pretence for the Bondi attack.
Australian Jews are just that, Australian, and they need to be protected as so.
Muslim Australians
I’m not going to sit here and act like the extreme version of Islam is not a terrifying prospect.
The radicalisation that exists within this faith is unlike anything else we have seen in modern times. It is single minded, deadly and the antithesis of humanity.
But the Islamic faith is not inherently bad.
Nor the Muslim people.
I personally have only ever met kind, loving, disciplined and dedicated Muslims—to paint them all with the same brush is ignorant and dangerous.
As it is to make assumptions about any cultural/religious group.
Australian Muslims weren’t involved in any way, yet they know the backlash always hits them first. They will brace themselves for suspicion they did not earn.
If we are the Australian people we claim to be, we hold space for both.
We protect both.
We look after both.
Because it’s entirely possible to condemn an act of terror without condemning a community—this is the responsibility of every single one of us.
Ideology Is the Enemy—Not Identity
It’s easy to lump people together after a tragedy. It’s easy to let a couple of individuals paint an entire community.
But that’s how fear works: it simplifies.
This is not a simple moment, there is not simple fix to this moment.
Fear doesn’t zoom in. It zooms out.
Remember as best you can when confronting these issues and talking with friends and family about what is next:
Culture is not a crime
Identity is not ideology
Faith does not equal extremist
We have to stay precise here.
The world is complicated enough without us flattening human beings into categories they don’t deserve to sit in.
The Real Fight Is Against Fear-Based Thinking
There will be people — online, on talkback radio, in politics — who rush to tell you exactly what this event means.
They’ll give you a villain, a narrative, a scapegoat.
They’ll package fear into something that sounds like certainty.
And here’s the thing:
Certainty is seductive when the world feels shaky.
But it’s almost always the wrong guide.
Fear-based thinking is lazy. It doesn’t ask you to reflect. It doesn’t ask you to pause.
It only asks you to react.
It’s the fast food of public conversation: easy to swallow, terrible for you long-term.
And politically motivated commentators know this—think about all the slogans over time that have been born out of fear:
The blacks are violent
The Muslims are terrorists
The Jews will take your money
The immigrants will steal your jobs
The transgenders will assault your kids
They know tragedy creates a window where people are scared, and scared people are easier to influence.
Which is why your job — our job — is to stay awake.
To think slowly when everything around us feels fast.
To question the voice that tells you to blame the many for the actions of the few.
People who benefit from division always show up early—we don’t have to let them set the tone.
This Is a Moment to Decide Who We Want to Be
Australia is not fragile by nature, but it can become fragile by choice.
We get to decide whether we respond to tragedy with:
blame or clarity
fear or proportion
suspicion or solidarity
division or community
As most of you know, I’m a fan of Stoicism and I don’t wish to trivialise this moment by incorporating my own ideology, but I think it is an important doctrine to turn to at a time when things seem so uncontrollable and distressing.
Stoicism reminds us that our control lies not in what happens, but in how we meet it.
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…”
—Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4–5
We can’t undo what happened at Bondi. It is a sad sad day that will be scarred into our hearts and minds for as long as we live.
We can’t erase the grief or the trauma.
But we can choose to protect the social fabric that has always made this country feel unique — the everyday sense of “you’re welcome here.”
Not everyone wants to think clearly.
Not everyone wants to lead with kindness.
Not everyone wants to put the collective above their own narrative.
But you do.
And many Australians do.
And that matters.
Because a country isn’t defined by the tragedies it experiences—it’s defined by the way its people respond once the dust settles.
Please also keep in mind… you are going to meet people ignorant to the nuance of this moment. Don’t be enraged, don’t fight back. Don’t tell them they are racist or bigoted. No, listen and understand so that we don’t continue the trend of finger pointing and tribalism.
This is a moment that asks us to respond well.
To stay human.
To stay grounded.
To stay connected.
And most importantly—to stay with each other.
For we are one and free.
With gratitude,
SAV
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