Yesterday in Sydney, two terrorists opened fire at a Jewish festival using high-powered rifles. In the midst of the chaos, an allegedly Muslim greengrocer, Ahmed al Ahmed, put his own life at risk to stop the attack and save countless people from being shot.
Whether or not he fully understood the danger in that moment, his extraordinary courage did more than save lives. His actions made it impossible to blame all Muslims, Arabs, immigrants, or multiculturalism for the violence. He did not kill the attacker; he stopped him, allowing law enforcement to step in. (It was later confirmed that one attacker was shot dead by police, while the second, his son, was shot and apprehended.)
This was a dark day for modern Australia, a country where mass shootings have been rare in recent decades due to strong gun laws introduced by the Liberal government under Prime Minister John Howard following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, when a lone gunman killed 35 people and injured many more.
Australia is not immune to violence or extremism. An Australian man from Grafton carried out the Christchurch mosque attacks in 2019, murdering 51 people and injuring 89 others while livestreaming the atrocity. Another Australian man from Croydon Park in Sydney opened fire earlier this year, injuring 16 people and firing at least 50 rounds, though he did not kill anyone.
Yesterday’s attack was planned and coordinated. At least 15 people were killed, including a child and two rabbis, and more than 40 were injured. While the motive has not yet been confirmed, it appears the attack may have been driven by religious hatred toward the Jewish community or possibly by misplaced revenge linked to the ongoing violence in Gaza. At this stage, however, we do not know—and that uncertainty matters.
What was most troubling after the news broke was seeing some Australians use this tragedy as an excuse to condemn immigration, multiculturalism, and Muslims as a whole.
Much will be said about this shooting in the months ahead, but we must remember that violence is not confined to any one race, religion, or background. White or Christian Australians are not exempt, as history has repeatedly shown, from Queensland and New South Wales to Christchurch.
There are no excuses for the gunmen. As the Muslim community in Sydney has already stated in an open letter, the full force of the law must be applied to the surviving attacker and to anyone who incited or assisted the violence.
There is no place in Australia for violence against anyone, especially against minority, religious, or ethnic groups. We take pride in not being America, where mass shootings are often described as “part of life.”
