Sydney Church Attacks: A Warning

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Following a terrified knife attack at a shopping center in Bondi Junction, Sydney, another knife attack at a church in West Sydney has shaken Australia. The incident has been characterized as a “terrorist act” and NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb has confirmed that the teenager who was arrested after the knife attack at the church made comments during the incident suggesting that the attack was religiously motivated. This incident makes us reflect on how the government can better advocate for a more diverse, inclusive and safe society in the aftermath of this religious conflict. This is a difficult issue that Australia, as an immigrant society, will never be able to get around.

What made a teenager wield a knife?

On the evening of April 15, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was leading a service at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, west of Sydney, and streaming the service live online. Suddenly, a 16-year-old boy lunged at him with a knife, stabbing the bishop and injuring three other men. The four injured, aged between 20 and 60, are all in no danger of dying and are receiving medical treatment. Local police arrived quickly after the incident and arrested the teenager.

Bishop Mar Mari Emanuel is a prominent religious leader in the area. The conservative Assyrian leader is known for his outspoken views against the Covid pandemic , homosexuality, and non-Christian religions, including Judaism and Islam. And this is considered by many to be the main reason why he was targeted – because of his critical and outspoken views on Islam. Many of his sermons criticized the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad and attracted as many as 240,000 fans. The boy in question is said to have made comments in Arabic referring to insults against ‘my prophet’ before stabbing the bishop.

Investigators from the Sydney Joint Terrorism Unit (JTU) began questioning the teenager at the hospital last week and accused him of committing an act of terrorism. Terrorism is defined in federal law as an act or threat intended to “advance political, ideological or religious causes” and to “coerce or intimidate the government or public of Australia or a foreign country”. Terrorism is a generic term referring to allegations of terrorism, while a ‘terrorist act’ is a specific unlawful act that ’causes serious bodily harm to an individual or serious damage to property, causes death or endangers the life of an individual, poses a serious threat to public health and safety, or seriously interferes with, disrupts or disrupts an electronic information, telecommunications or financial system’, an offense punishable by up to life imprisonment. The teenager was refused bail and traveled to court from his hospital bed. The teenager, who allegedly used a knife that cut off one of his fingers, also underwent surgery. The Joint Terrorism Unit (JTU) is made up of members of NSW Police, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and the NSW Criminal Investigation Commission (CIC).

The 16-year-old was expelled from a school in West Sydney six months ago after being diagnosed with anger management issues, being very withdrawn and spending long periods of time in his bedroom playing on his computer. His parents were appalled by his behavior and have not returned to their West Sydney home since the attack because they fear for their safety. Based on known information, it appears the teenager was acting alone at the time of the attack. Meanwhile, the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), Mike Burgess, added that Australia’s national terrorism threat level would remain at “likely”.

Crowds gather to cause riots

As the incident was being broadcast live on the internet, a demonstration broke out outside the church immediately after the incident, with people gathering to denounce the suspect. Some people shouted “bring him out” and “eye for an eye”, and police were forced to stay in the church with the suspect and at one point tear gas was used to disperse the crowd. More than 100 police officers were mobilized to deal with the riot that night. Many officers were injured, police cars were vandalized, and a large number of police officers and medical staff were forced to take refuge inside the church. Investigators are looking for up to 50 people who took part in the violence; three people have already appeared in court on charges of participating in the riot. Many of those involved in the riots were not members of the church community, and some simply came to participate in the riots, “which is shameful and disgusting. Prime Minister Albanese also issued a statement condemning the mass disorder, saying “it is unacceptable to obstruct and harm police officers in the performance of their duties.

The current online environment, particularly in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has exacerbated tensions between the groups. West Sydney is a melting pot of different cultures from the Middle East, and the often complex relationships between groups can easily create a fertile environment for angry individuals who want to take action, target, or even be motivated to attack someone. After the attack, religious groups condemned the attack and called for calm.

Assyrian History

The incident took place in the Assyrian community. The Assyrians are a people of Near Eastern Mesopotamia, said to have originated from the city of Ashur, who took control of the Middle East in 824 BC, and in 671 BC, the Assyrian armies conquered Egypt and became the hegemonic powers of the world at that time, succeeding the Babylonian Empire. However, after the Persian, Greek and Roman empires had fallen into disrepute, the Assyrians lived only in the present-day regions of Syria and Iraq. However, started in 100 AD, the Assyrians converted to Christianity, so that Syria was a predominantly Christian country, while the Assyrian Christians lived in a country surrounded by Muslims for a long time. For more than 1,000 years, the Christians in Syria have lived under long term oppression, and many of them have migrated to different countries around the world. There are now 700,000 Assyrians in Syria and close to 600,000 Assyrians living in the United States. Stockholm, Sweden, and Fairfield, Sydney, have the largest Assyrian diaspora in terms of urban population.

The Assyrians were a dispossessed people for over a thousand years, and were subjected to various forms of oppression under various rulers, including the Western Christianity in Europe, which rejected them, and did not recognize them in the Reformed or Eastern Orthodox Churches, which were considered to be biased in their beliefs. However, they can be said to have preserved the original Christian culture of the Middle East.

Thus the Assyrians are in fact an almost exclusively Christian minority group, originally from parts of modern-day Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey, and as a religious and ethnic minority group distinct from the Arab and Muslim majorities in the region, they face brutal persecution to this day. This incident adds a new dimension to the trauma of their long years of oppression, and this collective memory of trauma reinforces the close-knit identity of the community’s residents.

Bishop Mar Mari Emanuel, who was stabbed, also recently posted an audio message on social media saying that he is recovering quickly and has forgiven his attackers, and urging the congregation to remain calm and respect the law. In a recent meeting with religious leaders, NSW Governor Michael Cummins also called for calm and solidarity – compassion, understanding, cohesion, unity, and most importantly, peace, whether attending local churches and mosques, these people are there to be part of their communities, to find comfort and strength there. This is no place for violence.

It’s the cracks that allow the light to shine through

Unlike the belief held by many Australians that Australia is a Christian nation, this is not true.

Australia has been a secular state since the founding of the Commonwealth, and the 1901 Constitution prohibits the federal government from interfering with any freedom of religion. However, Christians have been the majority in the country since European immigrants settled here, with more than 90% of the population professing Christianity at the time, and only a small minority having no religious affiliation. While the number of non-religious Australians has increased over the past three decades, communities outside of the Christian religion have flourished in Australia, with Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism among the fastest-growing religions in the country, and these religions have flourished for their ability to provide connection, community and a sense of spirituality, particularly in serving new immigrant communities.

The 2021 Australian Population Survey showed that less than 50% of the population declared themselves to be Christians, and less than 20% of new immigrants are Christians. It can be said that newcomers do not have the same cultural identity as the original Australians as did immigrants during the Second World War. Therefore, it is a challenge for Australia to build a stronger sense of identity between new immigrants and the Australian nation.

Australia has always been committed to religious freedom, and extremism has no place. The Sydney church attack was an extremely disturbing incident, and for Australia to be a peace-loving nation, the community should be united, not divided. But is it really so easy to heal the rift between communities caused by the attack itself and the subsequent festering mass unrest?

In response to the growing threat of right-wing extremism in Australia, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) updated its definition of extremist groups in early 2021 – categorizing them as being driven by “ideology” or “religious belief”. The Sydney church attack was also categorized as a terrorist act because of its religious motivation. A new version of the Defense Strategic Review, launched last year, emphasized the need for Australia to move away from the old model of defense to a new approach of National Defence – a Whole-of-Government Approach or a Whole-of-Nation Approach. A Whole-of-Government Approach or a Whole-of-Nation Approach was adopted to cope with the competition of the big powers. In Australia, a secular and pluralistic country, a Whole-of-Nation Approach involves the unity of religious communities.

Australia is a multiracial country practicing multiculturalism, but recent international events and various localized wars have made people in Australia’s Middle Eastern communities particularly sensitive. In this climate, is Australia safer or more torn apart? How far can religious freedom go in this country? Perhaps continued secularization is the most viable path, freeing people from the establishment to truly see the individual, whether Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, etc., as a person who comes together in Australia with a shared vision of a happy life where there is no place for violence.

Reflections for the Chinese

The Chinese are often seen as irreligious, so many people think that the events in Sydney had little to do with them. However, ideologically speaking, the Chinese consider themselves to be “Chinese”, and today China (the People’s Republic of China) considers all Chinese in the world to be Chinese, a belief that dominates many Chinese.

Few Chinese from Southeast Asia identify themselves with their country of origin, and therefore most of them define their cultural roots as Chinese culture, and do not actively identify themselves with the Australian mainstream culture. Nowadays, the Chinese government is actively building up the relationship with the Chinese community in Australia, and more Chinese from China still consider themselves as Chinese, so it is easy to build up the idea that Chinese-Australians are also Chinese in each Chinese community. During the period of friendly relations between Australia and China, this idea was promoted and developed as a positive factor in promoting economic and cultural cooperation between the two countries.

However, in the past decade, China has become increasingly powerful and has challenged the legitimacy of the Western powers in dominating world politics. As a result, there has been a growing mistrust of and opposition to China in Australian society, and the community’s recognition of and trust in the Chinese has come under pressure. In recent years, Hong Kong people who came to Australia due to political pressure or persecution are even more dissatisfied with being regarded as “Chinese”, and some Hong Kong immigrants refuse to recognize themselves as Chinese. This has led to differences and divisions in the Chinese community, and I believe this is something that the Australian government needs to address.

The majority of Chinese Australians today are not refugees, but free immigrants who came to Australia by their own choice. They should be a group of people who recognize the values and culture of Australia, but it will take some time before they can fully integrate into the Australian society. As they come from societies with different governing cultures, they also show different responses to the values held by the Australian society. There are Hong Kong immigrants who embrace democracy and the rule of law as their core values, Taiwanese immigrants who do not consider themselves to be Chinese at all, and those who grew up with Chinese patriotic education (brainwashing?) and enjoy democratic rights and freedoms, but have not yet fully integrated into Australian society. There are also new immigrants from China who grew up (brainwashed?) with Chinese patriotic education and enjoy the rights of democracy and freedom while embracing the totalitarian rule of China. In fact, if these situations are not handled properly, the community conflicts caused by different religions and cultures in Sydney may also occur among the Chinese. I believe that this is something that the Australian government cannot afford to ignore.

Article/Editorial Department (Sameway Magazine)

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