It’s difficult to understand the depths of horror that occurred within the vast Westfield shopping centre near the famous Bondi Beach in Sydney last weekend. A 40-year-old man, wearing an Australian Rugby League shirt would have appeared innocuous – just a traditional a part of the group. Instead, he ended up killing six individuals with a knife, and injuring seriously eleven others, including a baby.
The dead included the mother of the newborn, an architect, a refugee who worked as a security guard, an artist originally from the country of Georgia, and a bride to be out purchasing for her wedding. Five of the six killed were women, as were eight of the survivors.
The murders, and the reactions to them reveal an awesome deal about our society – the great, the bad and the ugly.
What good can there possibly be in such senseless violence? An incredible deal. Take for instance the mother who died as she sought to guard her baby. Dr Ashlee Good took her baby out of the pram and handed her to some of strangers, before she was then attacked and killed.
Or the policewoman, Inspector Amy Scott, who confronted the person after which when he turned on her, shot him dead. Probably saving many more lives. Or the 2 men who ran towards the danger and sought to forestall the murderer advancing up an escalator. The delay they caused also saved lives.
And then there was the safety guard who was killed. Faraz Ahmad Tahir was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community who had come to Australia as a refugee from Pakistan – where the Ahmadiyyas are persecuted by more orthodox Muslims.
The courage and compassion of many involved revealed the perfect of human nature. But in fact we also saw the worst – especially within the reactions.
Sadly, in our instantaneous world, individuals are far too quick to leap to conclusions – without knowing what has actually happened. As news got here out of Sydney, the web was awash with people, including some well-known commentators, declaring that this was yet one more example of an Islamist attack. It wasn’t.
But maybe even more horrifically inside hours it was being widely reported that a young Jewish student was the person responsible. When I woke up on Sunday morning his name was everywhere in the web – and those that appear to spend every waking hour commenting on Palestine were quick to brag about ‘Jewish terrorism’. One mainstream TV station in Australia added fuel to the fireplace by naming him because the suspect. His name was mentioned over 50,000 times in social media.
Islamism? Jewish terrorism? The just one missing was the standard ‘Far Right’ cry. The truth is that even when the murderer had been a Muslim, or a Jew, and even expressed Far Right opinions, it can have had little to do with the killings – which appear to have been the results of a severe mental health illness. But such is the tribalisation of our society that individuals look to search out ‘evidence’ for his or her prejudices – even within the midst of such tragedy.
We have to be careful when speaking about mental health as well. Most people who find themselves mentally unwell aren’t mass murderers. We must not demonise those who are suffering from poor mental health. Neither must we allow mental health for use as an excuse for evil. It is feasible that somebody could lose all sense of ethical compass that they are not any longer answerable for what they do – but that’s an extreme. It happens. But it’s rare.
The real murderer, Joel Cauchi, from Queensland was known to the police for having serious mental health issues related to schizophrenia – although he had no criminal record. He got here to Sydney a month ago and had been living in a vehicle. He appears to have had an obsession with knives, but apart from that his Facebook posts exude normality showing an interest in browsing, visiting the Sydney Opera House and eating curry. However, he did advertise himself as a male escort offering graphic sexual services.
It is obvious he was a severely disturbed individual – and that in itself raises questions on how we help those who are suffering from severe mental illness, especially once they may find yourself causing such devastation. I believe a society which inspires violence and prostitution will not be a healthy one for an unhealthy individual to be in.
The fact is that this example might have been rather a lot worse. I’ve seen some argue that if Australians carried guns these killings wouldn’t have happened. That is to say the least, simplistic and unwise. The corollary is that if Cauchi had had guns we might have been a Port Arthur style massacre. In 1996 a gunman killed 35 people in Port Arthur in Tasmania. After that Australia’s gun laws were massively tightened with heavy restrictions on the usage of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. I actually have little doubt that this laws has saved quite a few lives – including this past weekend in Sydney.
Meanwhile as I write news has come of a the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and three others within the Assyrian Orthodox Church in Wakeley, West Sydney. Bishop Emmanuel is a well-known and sometimes controversial Christian commentator and his stabbing during his live streamed service was astonishing. This time the NSW government have declared it a terrorist incident, since the teenage attacker appears to have been motivated by his Islamic faith.
According to news sources he’s alleged to have said that his motivation for the attack was that he believed the bishop had attacked his prophet Muhammad. The attack resulted in riots outside the church – with 20 police vehicles being damaged and several other people, including cops, being taken to hospital.
In all of this we’re reminded that all of us live in a broken world where there are broken minds, broken bodies, broken homes, broken hearts and broken societies. We can only pray for, and long for, healing. A healing which ultimately comes only through Christ. We weep with those that weep, and we cry ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’
