Start with schools, unis to address the failure of collective leadership in the lead-up to Bondi shootings

By Jennifer Westacott AC, Guardian - The Dor Foundation
Read the article online at The Australian

When I visited Bondi Beach on Wednesday with my Jewish friends, it was a place of unspeakable sorrow and grief. A place that had witnessed cruelty and cowardice at the same time as bravery and courage. Acts of astonishing sacrifice and selflessness.

As someone who has spoken out and acted against the rise of anti-Semitism, it was a numbing and sickening experience. There has been and will continue to be much-needed reflection. For me, as I said in a recent speech, we have seen a failure of collective leadership. Now we need collective action. We walked past the placards at the weekly protests calling for the globalisation of the intifada. On Sunday night we saw what that looks like. We walked past the signs that called for Jewish Australians to be harmed – actually killed. We used the cloak of free speech to justify the acceptance of anti-Semitism, tolerating placards and chants like “from the river to the sea” – in other words, the annihilation of the Jewish state.

This was not free speech. This was hate speech. We used the concept of context, particularly at universities, as camouflage for abhorrent language attacking and threatening Jewish people. We deliberately, or through indifference, allowed the confusion about the actions of nation states to somehow justify the language of hate and acts of violence against Jewish Australians. And that violence, physical and verbal, got worse.

With notable exceptions, that collective failure to act decisively, and in a co-ordinated way, to shut down anti-Semitism, created a normalising effect. Almost a legitimising effect. The important analysis must continue but it must be matched with action. Collective action, co-ordinated across all spheres of society, short and long term, precise and impactful.

It is time for that crucial collective leadership dynamic to step in. And this must begin with non-Jewish Australians. Jewish Australians are grieving. They are mourning.

And we must act. We must support them. We must rid our society and our country of anti-Semitism and hate. The announcements by federal and state governments this week are important and much-needed first steps and platforms. But all of us must do more.

Let’s start with universities, the sector I represent. While I’m proud of what my university did to shut down anti-Semitism, and I acknowledge the work of other universities, the reality is we did not, as a sector, act with enough urgency and we did not act decisively.

Campuses became places of fear and intimidation, not places of legitimate and respectful protests, not places of knowledge and enlightenment. The work of David Gonski and Jillian Segal will be important to unpack why this happened and why it can never happen again.

My colleagues and I will do everything we can to support this work, and acknowledge much is now being done in the university sector, but in the meantime, we should do the following:

When Jewish students and Jewish university employees return to our campuses nex year, we will keep them safe. We will develop specific and detailed action plans to do this. This must be done by each university according to their circumstances.

We will shut down, and I mean shut down, anti-Semitic language, placards, protests, lectures, wherever we see it. No more hiding behind free speech. We make it clear it won’t be tolerated and if we see it, we shut it down.

We will step up our complaints-handling processes. We make them widely known and accessible and we make our actions transparent. We have to have the courage, as my university and other universities have done, to suspend or expel students and take disciplinary action against employees when complaints of anti-Semitism are upheld. Because no so-called context or so-called academic freedom can justify what we have seen in our universities: hate speech and anti-Semitism designed to intimidate and drive fear.

We must continue the long, hard work of training and raising awareness about anti- Semitism, about racism, and about the importance of respectful debate and disagreement.

Most urgently, we need to support our Jewish student and staff representative bodies with meaningful funding, constant dialogue and, importantly, working with them on what needs to be done.

Governments must support the university sector in these endeavours. Important standards and guidelines must be done at a sector level; we cannot expect each university to sort this out.

In our schools we must take action now to stop anti-Semitism, racism and hatred taking hold in our young people. It is hard to turn around entrenched prejudice. So let’s begin now a national program of enlightenment and social cohesion. What it actually means to be Jewish, what it actually means to be of other faiths – teaching our young people about Australian values, such as democracy, the rule of law, the true meaning of multiculturalism, tolerance, respect and empathy.

We need to teach our young people the art of respectful debate. Why don’t we think about an immediate nationwide program, starting in schools but extending to all of society, to educate Australians about the Holocaust. According to research conducted by The Alfred Deakin Institute, a quarter (24 per cent) of the population aged 18 years or older have little to no knowledge of the Holocaust, with that number rising to 30 per cent among millennials. It was one of the most defining acts of modern history. It tells us how quickly a society and all its institutions can unravel and turn on people.

We know in other parts of the world, every day, innocent people are persecuted, tortured and murdered. But the Holocaust was at another level. The industrialised, institutionalised, state-based murder of six million people.

If we don’t understand the Holocaust, how can we understand what anti-Semitism leads to? If we don’t understand how societies can unravel by incremental acquiescence and indifference, then how can we possibly progress? As Cicero said: “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history.”

Other actions that could and should be taken include looking at our digital regulatory environment to test whether our laws are adequate to defend against hate speech, anti-Semitism and the incitement of violence. We cannot allow social media, fuelled by artificial intelligence, to become the unchecked arena for terrorism and violence.

Another important priority is for governments to work with the Jewish community to fund the development and implementation of a national crisis prevention, detection, management and recovery plan. We do this for natural disasters, why can’t we do this for anti-Semitism. The great Australian Sir Peter Cosgrove would be well placed to lead this work.

Many other important recommendations have been made this week and they need to be considered and acted upon. These actions cannot be allowed to linger and there is a tremendous sense of urgency. But all these actions and all these debates must happen respectfully.

The debate about immigration is a case in point. The same system that has brought wickedness to our shores also brought us Ahmed al-Ahmed and other brave souls who acted with such courage on Sunday. Throughout our history it has also brought us wonderful Jewish Australians who have contributed so positively to our way of life. And millions of other migrants who have enriched our culture and prosperity.

So let’s have the debate about migration but let’s not tolerate old hatreds and prejudices, because you can’t fight hatred with more hatred. That is not the Australian way. Because above all else, the most important collective action needed now is to reclaim our Australian values. The values of tolerance, of respect, of compassion, and of helping fellow citizens. The values of fairness. The values of freedom.

Jennifer Westacott AC is chancellor of Western Sydney University and a board member of the Dor Foundation. This is an edited extract of a speech she delivered at the Dor Foundation on Monday night.

Tanya Cherny