The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

Bondi Beach Massacre, Grief, And Speaking Plainly | Ep. 142

• Fiona Kane • Season 1 • Episode 142

Share episode

Send us a text

Let’s talk plainly about Bondi, grief, and courage. Fiona opens her heart about the massacre at Bondi Beach, why words matter, and what it means to stand with the Jewish community without hiding behind vague language. This isn’t a debate about abstractions; it’s about naming a targeted attack, honouring victims and first responders, and drawing the civic lines that keep a diverse Australia safe.

We dig into the difference between method and motive - why focusing only on gun control misses the larger cultural work of integration, leadership, and zero tolerance for hate preaching. Fiona unpacks the real-world impact of protest slogans that dehumanise Jews, while also affirming that people can hold firm views on Middle East policy without slipping into antisemitism. You’ll hear brave stories from the day - teenagers shielding toddlers, parents protecting strangers’ children, a bystander stepping into danger - and why these acts of courage should shape how we support survivors and rebuild trust.

From community responsibility to political accountability, this conversation is a call to moral clarity.

If this speaks to you, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review. Most of all, add your voice: what truth do you think Australia needs to say out loud right now?

Music by Josh from Pixabay



Outro: Music by Musinova from Pixabay

Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

Sign up to receive our newsletter by clicking here.

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Credit for the music used in this podcast:

SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I'm going to be talking about Bondi Beach, the Bondi Beach Massacre, because I think it's a really important event that's happened in my Sydney, in my city. And even though I know this is a health podcast, it is actually about health and about society and culture and mental health and all sorts of things. I talk on lots of broad topics, and I'm based in Sydney, and this is really important to me. One of the reasons the podcast has been delayed this week is I've just been taking all of this in and I wasn't ready to talk about it yet, but I felt like it was an important topic to discuss this week. So first of all, I'd like to say that my thoughts are with the Jewish community and all of the people that have been affected by this. So whether all of the victims, um, some of whom were Jewish and some were not, all of the first responders, the heroes that tried to help and save the day, you know, everyone who's been involved, doctors, nurses, everyone involved, um, emergency services, uh, the the life, the Bondi, uh, Bondi lifeguards, uh lifesavers. There's so many people that have been involved. And my heart goes out to all of them because I know that these events really affect people in a huge way, uh, whether it's that they've witnessed it, whether or not they're a helper there, whether or not they were involved in it and were affected by it directly. But these things have huge ramifications. So I just want to say that my heart goes out to um to everyone who's been involved in this and who's been affected by this, but in particular to the Jewish community, because I feel like for the last two years there's been terrible attacks on the Jewish community, um, some subtle, some not so subtle. And uh while I was horrified and shocked by the events on Sunday, I can't say I was surprised that it happened because I've been just seeing this escalation happening in um in Australia. And I must say that I um I'm devastated. I'm really devastated that Australia is currently not a safe place for Jews. And I don't don't think you can pussy foot around that, but it's true. And what I I would have never thought in my lifetime that that would happen. And I'm horrified that Australia is is where it's and then where it's heading. I'm horrified with that. And I think it's important when these events happen, what I'm noticing is uh people are using a lot of language, they're either avoiding saying it's got anything to do with Jews or anything to do with uh um anything to do with Islamist terrorism, which is exactly what it is, it's Islamist terrorism. And a lot of people are using language like, oh, you know, a terrible you know, a terrible thing happened or a uh, you know, a tragedy happened and they're not saying what actually happened. And while it's a terrible thing and while it's a tragedy, this was actually a targeted attack on Jewish people. This was a a targeted terrorist terrorist attack on Jewish people at Bonday Beach and an indiscriminate attack as far as they didn't, you know, they weren't targeting people who had certain political views or this or that, whatever. They were targeting children at a petting zoo. This was a horrific, horrific targeted attack on Jews, a terrorist attack. And it's important to acknowledge that because if we don't acknowledge that we can't fix things we won't acknowledge. And what I'm noticing is a lot of language around about oh, you know, just people kind of glazing over and calling it different things and not even acknowledging that it was targeted at Jews, not even acknowledging that. They just sort of just don't say, don't say, you know. And I get that there's a bit of political climate of the last couple of years, and it actually is hard to speak up and say anything on this topic because there's so much hate and vitriol for people who do speak about this topic. The problem is in this country and around the world, this isn't just happening in Australia, if we don't actually speak up now while we can, one day we won't be able to. So it's actually really, really important that we speak up now and we stand up for our Jewish friends and family and colleagues and uh and community. It's really, really important we say this is not okay. And, you know, in the UK, after that Ariana Grande concert where again it was an Islamist attack, um, a terrorist attack, the first thing they told the public was don't look back in anger. Well, we've got to be forgiving. Oh, we've got we've got to look at kindness, blah, blah, blah. And look, I'm all for kindness. And I and I all of like the moment in Australia, there's uh, you know, there's straight away there's a TV commercial out talking about kindness and and you know, caring and kindness and all of that. Look, great, I am all for that. However, you can't jump straight through to let's just be kind without acknowledging what has actually happened and without talking about it and without doing something about it. And the first thing that the Australian government has done is talk about gun control. And again, I'm all for gun control. Australia is very much, uh is a society that is not a big fan of too much in the way of guns, and I have no issue with that. But we all already have, I think, some of the strongest laws in the world on gun control. Um, it would seem it's more about whether or not those laws are being implemented the way that they should be, because I don't, you know, someone who's clearly radicalized like that obviously shouldn't have a gun license. So I don't know if it's about changing the laws or just about implementing them better. Fine, you can have that conversation, you can talk about that. The problem is if we just leave it as a gun control conversation, we don't talk about what's the real issue. And of course, you can control guns, but you then the other issue is that around the world people are using cars to do the same thing. You can't ban all cars, or they're using bombs, or they're using other methods. So the method of it is, you know, yeah, obviously, yeah, gun control, fine, whatever, but I think we miss the point, the elephant in the room, when we only look at the guns and we don't look at what's going on in our communities, what's going on in our societies that is allowed this to happen. Now, it would seem these people were inspired by ISIS, and you know, you obviously can't say this caused that or this particular thing caused that thing. But what I do know in the last two years that uh the Jewish people have been targeted in this country. There's businesses closing down and who have closed down because they get attacked all the time and they can't keep their customers safe because they're Jewish businesses, because people disagree with what Netanyahu is doing or did or whatever. That's just not okay. It is quite okay to have an opinion about Netanyahu, Israel, the war, Palestinians, whatever. It's quite okay to have whatever opinion you have about those things and to speak on those things or to talk about those things. But this is not that. So, first of all, the people on Bondi Beach celebrating Hanukkah, that's nothing to do with any of that. So, you know, it's not their fault, whatever is or is not happening. But secondly, what's happened, I've noticed that when these people uh marching and talking about these Palestinian issues, many of them, not all of them, look, I've got some dear friends who appear to have really become very pro-Palestinian. And um, and I know that the people I know who who talk that way and who are doing the marches and stuff, I know them to be very good people. And I feel like they're very well intentioned. And I think that this is the first time that we've seen a war pretty much live on our screens. But we're also uh because of the way social media works, because of the way we are all in our little bubbles, we see a lot of propaganda. So we might only see one side of things. Um, and of course, with modern technology, there's all sorts of things you can do with AI or with the way you film things, or just the way you tell a story, that can one way or the other affect someone's uh opinion of that story. So I think that my friends who are who are seem to be really caught up in this are really, really well intended. But not all people who are involved in this are really, really well intended. And the people who are marching with signs that say globalize the interfada, well, yeah, congratulations because that has happened. And that is essentially about bringing terrorism to all around the world, uh, Islamic terrorism. Yeah, that's what globalized the interfada means. Feel better now that there's 10-year-olds dead on Bondi Beach? Yep, that's what that means. From the river to the sea, from the river to the sea means destroying Israel and getting rid of the Jews. That's what that means. So if you're if you're saying that, that's what it means. And by any means or any means necessary or whatever, what does that mean? You know, so it's I I totally get people having opinions about these things, but when people are marching saying those things, they're actually calling for extermination of the Jews. They said that's simple as that. And then they say, Oh, we're not talking about Jews, we're talking about Zionists. Well, a Zionist is just someone who believes in the Jewish state that that Jews have a right to have their own state. There's 50 odd Muslim Islamic states over in the Middle East and around the world. There's one Jewish state. A Zionist just believes that they deserve to have that one Jewish state. That's it. But the way that people in these marches talk about Zionists, they actually use the word like they're talking about vermin, like they're talking about something disgusting and terrible and foul. And really, let's just be honest, they're not talking about people who believe in this the state of Israel, the country of Israel. They're talking about Jews. And that therein lies the problem now is that we actually have this anti-Jewish rhetoric that's kind of caught up in different language and different words and different, we're careful of how we say it. And then we can say, oh no, no, we're not. We're not anti-Semitic, we're not anti-Jews. Oh no, no, we we just, you know, we're all about love and peace. And now we're actually some people are calling Zionists Nazis. I I just don't get it. I just don't yeah. So sorry this has become quite political, but I believe that for societies and cultures and for the sake of our mental health and our physical health, for all of that, we actually need to have hard discussions. And now is the time for all of the Western countries around the world to have discussions. And I am not anti-Muslim, I've got lovely Muslim friends as well. Uh, and there was a lovely Muslim man who stood up and and you know um disarmed one of the gunmen, and that's amazing. And and he was injured, he was shot twice. Uh great hero, wonderful, wonderful. And I really, really wish actually that the Muslim community would actually stand up as well and when these things happen and say it's not okay. Because there are Muslim um clerics in these um in these mosques who are hate preaching, who are preaching the hate of Jews and of really of anyone who's not Muslim. And that is happening, that's actively happening in Sydney, Australia. There's lots of recordings of it, it's happening in Sydney, Australia. Not okay. So we need to have discussions, and we actually now right now need to talk about the elephant in the room and talk about what kind of Australia do we want, and what kind of culture do we want to promote? And it's quite all right to have uh so the problem is people talk about multiculturalism like it's a good thing. I think multiracial, yes, like some people, all different races, all different colours, all different whatever, that brilliant, right? But multiculturalism, no, not all cultures are equal, and we want a culture that is respectful of other human beings, that a culture that is not anti-women, uh anti-gays, you know, anti-Jews, whatever. We want a culture where everyone just wants to get along and live their best life and work hard and you know, and have a great have a great life in Australia, whatever your religion is, whatever your beliefs are, but people who are integrated into a culture that sort of just doesn't want to bring all of the problems of all of the wars from all over the world to our shores. So we want a place where everyone can be happy and live together. So, yes, that multiracial, yes, but multicultural, no, we need to have a dominant culture here, a culture of what it means to be Australian. And um, and then yeah you can blend in bits and pieces, that's fine. But we do need to have a culture, an Australian culture, which we did have, and we're losing. And it's okay to have those conversations and say that we want people to come to Australia who want to integrate and who want to be part of this great thing, not people who want to come here and tear it down, people who want to come here and and assassinate people. We want people who want to be Australians and who want to share this great country with us and who want to do like do the best for themselves and their families. That's who we want here, whatever religion, colour, whatever that is. Um so it's not racist to have that conversation, however, it is being treated as racist to have that conversation. But the problem is if good people don't have this conversation, then bad people certainly will. And so the problem is what we have is we have people having a conversation, you know, extremists at either end having this conversation, rather than just sensible good people saying, hey, we want to make this great thing that is Australia work. What's the best way we can do this? You know, how can we integrate better? How can we actually have immigration laws that are sensible and gun laws that are sensible and not giving guns to people who are gun licenses to people who are have really badly intentioned, right? Murderous people. So it is okay to have this conversation. We need to have this conversation, we need to be brave. I encourage you to be brave. Talk to your Jewish colleagues, ask them about what it's been like for the last two years, because you might not know, especially if you watch the ABC, because the ABC in Australia, they don't want to tell you what's happening. Uh, they didn't won't even acknowledge that this is this what happened at Bondi has anything to do with religion. They won't even acknowledge that. So when as long as we want to talk in little rhymes and talk in little oh, compassion and caring and whatever, which all great. But as long as we want to do that and not talk about the elephant in the room, this elephant's gonna get bigger and it's gonna cause bigger problems. We need to have the conversations. Good people need to have these conversations. You need to talk to you talk to your Muslim friends and to your Jewish friends, talk to your friends who are pro and anti-Israel, whatever, talk to all different people, include all different people. Get a feel for all the whole story and not just one, just get on our sides and hate person on the other side. And be brave and have have be prepared to have these conversations. Uh, and that you are, if you do have this conversation, unfortunately, when you do have this conversation, you are called an Islamophobe. Um after Sunday at Bondai Beach, I don't think it's an irrational fear. Uh phobia is an irrational fear. I don't think it's an irrational fear. Islamism is not an irrational fear. There's been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of uh terror attacks around the world since 9-11. Um, and many of them, most of them have been you know Islamic terrorism. Yeah, I don't think it's irrational fear. Uh, and that's very different to being racist to people, right? Being racist to people, hating on them just because of their race or their religion, whatever is one thing. Being fearful of uh Islamic terrorists, yeah, that's reasonable. That's actually not an irrational fear. But what they've done is they've created this word Islamophobia to use to shut people down because good people don't want to be seen or thought of as being a racist and it shuts them down straight away. So that's the word that's being used and will be used. And the other thing that is really, really frustrating when these things happen is the first thing that comes out of like our Prime Minister, one of the first things that comes out of his mouth is, oh, right-wing terrorism and and uh and and guns and uh you know um Islamophobia, you know. Yeah, I think you'll like the yeah, I've got a problem with right-wing, right-wing nutjobs. Don't get me wrong, they exist and they'll get bigger and bigger if we don't have this conversation. Uh, but uh that's not what this was about. And so we need to have conversations, we need to have the real conversation, we need to stop talking in codes, we need to support our all of our friends from all around the world to integrate into this beautiful country and you know, be here and and make it beautiful and make it wonderful. Uh, and we need to talk to our Jewish friends who have been suffering for the last couple of years terribly. You know, Deborah Conway goes on stage and and she's Jewish and she has people heckle her and harass her at her concerts everywhere. Uh there's so many of the Jewish community that have guards and and people at their schools and at their synagogues. You know, synagogues have been firebombed and and businesses are closing and people are treated terribly every day in Australia just for the for being the crime of being Jewish. That is not okay. This is Australia, the place of having a fair go, the place of being decent. It's not okay. Now, previously I did an episode when the Bondi um the other Bondi event happened where there was a shooting in the shopping centre, at the Westfield shopping centre. And in that episode, I did talk a lot about you know the looking for the good. And I think it is also important to look for the good in these issues, and I think the media in the Australian media, I think, is done in. Pretty good job of doing that as well. And so I think that's really good. And it's good for our mental health to look for the pet then look for the good, look for the helpers. And there are so many stories that come out of this that will that to show you the helpers. You know, the I saw a story last night of a 14-year-old girl who um was hiding under, she was there, she was in the um the petting zoo, and she she got herself under a sort of under a bench, and so she was fairly safe in that position relatively. And she saw a woman and another woman, I don't know if it was a mother and like a grandmother and mother, I'm not sure. Uh, and with a couple of children, a couple of very small children under five, and these women had been injured, um, quite gravely injured. I don't know if they survived or not, but they were asking for someone to protect their children because they couldn't get on top of the children because they were injured so badly. And this girl, 14-year-old girl, just finished year eight in high school, she came out of her hiding spot um and risked, risked her life. And she grabbed those children, pulled those children in and climbed over the top of them. And she got she was shot. Um, she was shot in the thigh. Um, so she had a terrible injury, and she she did that. She moved out of her safe place to help other people's children, you know. And there were other stories of that where mother couldn't find her own child, but she saw someone else's child and she climbed on top of that child and kept that child safe. Um, a friend of mine, uh I've got a lot of people who I know in the music and arts industry who they're not sort of um people I see a lot, that sort of thing, but just on the periphery of my um of people I know and care care for. Uh, and um one of those friends was there with her daughter at the petting zoo, and um, and she what she described was horrific. The same thing she climbed on top of her daughter to protect her daughter, and uh and they both survived, but they were very traumatized. And when she when she got up, well first of all, she um she thought that she'd crushed her daughter. So her daughter was so quiet that she thought she'd actually killed her own daughter, uh, which is just horrific. Um, by the way, this is I'm talking about Jessica Chapnik Khan, uh lovely singer, artist, uh, writer, all sorts of things. And she thought that she might have killed her own child because she was sort of on top of her so heavily trying to protect her. And she describes that when they finally got up to move away, the scene that she saw when she looked around, and how horrific that scene was, and how she sort of got told her daughter to put her head in her shoulder so she could get away and get her away safely without seeing any of that. At the same time, her husband and son were there looking for them because they were at home and they heard what happened, and they were looking through the bodies for for their child and and and wife, and like I so many of the stories you we sometimes um we think of the stories of the people who have been killed, like that um uh beautiful Matilda, who was named after the most Australian thing possible. Uh, because apparently she's first generation Australian. I think 10 years old, she was buried, I think it was yesterday, uh or the day before, I'm not sure. Um so many stories. And then there's stories of the people who died, but there's also the stories of sometimes we when we hear that people were injured, we hear the word injured and we kind of write that also off as not a big deal. But there's a young policeman who's a fairly new policeman who's lost his eye and had some horrific and hideous injuries that he's got to recover from. There's so many people who will have injuries now that they will have to live with for the rest of their life that will cause them terrible, terrible pain or incapacity or disability or whatever it is. This has affected so many people and psychologically affected so many people. So please have love for those people and have care for those people. And regardless of what your political opinions you have, this this event is not about politics, but unfortunately, it is politics that we need as part politics is part of the answer that we need because we need to have hard conversations and we need our politicians to lead, and we need our politicians to say that it's not okay to target any community. It's not okay to target any community. I don't want people to go out and target uh the Islamic community or the Muslim community. I of course not. It's not okay to target any community in this country. Uh, we need to support one another, and yes, the caring and the support and all those lovely things, we definitely need that. But we need strong leadership and we need to know it's not okay to um to pour all this vitriol and hate on the Jewish people. They do not deserve it. They do not deserve it. And we said never again after, or this is before my time, but uh World War II after the Holocaust. Yeah, all the people who will kind of would go along and say, Oh, yeah, the Holocaust was terrible, we shouldn't do that again. Hating on the Jews now. I don't know, but explain that one to me. Uh I also want to I want what's best for the world and I want what's best for this country, and I want people to be happy and um and live great lives, and I want for Australia to be a safe place for everyone to be, including the Jews, and and including any peace-loving people who want to integrate and be part of this great community. Uh, not all cultures are equal. And if your culture wants to kill gay people, stone women to death, kill women, those sorts of things, we don't want that in this country, regardless of where you're from or who you are. Um I want that for Australia, I want something good for Australia. And if the best thing that can come out of this is we're willing to have really hard conversations and we're willing to make some changes. The worst thing that can come out of this is we're all too uncomfortable or too scared to have the conversations, and we keep talking in all sorts of cloaked language, we don't support our Jewish friends, and they all leave, and you might say, Oh, I don't care. What do I care? You might not care. But first, they come for the Saturday people, and they come for the Sunday people. If we allow this to happen, it's not going to just stop at the Jews. It really is not. So, on a personal note, I just want to let you know that I am taking a little bit of a break from this podcast. Uh my business hasn't gone so well in more recent times, and I've had to get a full-time job. I've been working a full-time job since June and do my business, my nutrition business uh in my spare time. And trying to maintain a weekly podcast has been really challenging. I also, as you can tell from this episode, my interests have changed as well. I'm not so focused on just health, although I think all of this matters because it's human, the human experience, and it's all part of it. So I want to think about what I want to talk about in the future, what I want this podcast to be. And I need a bit of a break to recharge. And look, I'd love your feedback about what you would like to hear and what um topics interest you. And I understand for some people the topic that I talked about today will not be of interest. You might want pure health, and other people might say, I want more of that. I want you to talk more about culture and those things. I don't know. Um, give me a feedback, I'd like to hear it. Um, but I have to have to think about what I want to do, and so I'm gonna take a little bit of a break. Um, at some point I'll be back. I'll either be back to say, I'm done not doing this podcast anymore, gonna do something different, or um, I'll be back, might have changed a bit, or might just be back. I don't know, but I'll come back one way or the other and let you know what I want to do going forward. Um again, I just want to I I stand by the Jewish community. I stand by the Australian Jewish community, and my love and prayers go out to all of the people who have been terribly affected by this. Um, and um, I just probably just leave it there. And going into Christmas, let's let's let us do notice the heroes and the beautiful things that come out of this, but let's also not let people change some what people like to do sometimes is memory hole things, and we won't talk about it, we won't say anything. Then we'll slowly start to say it was something different to what it was. We need to sometimes in life, and I've always been a fan of this when you hear me talk about any psychology topics, any mental health topics, whatever. What do I always say? You've got to deal with what is first. So you've got to be really, really honest about what is before you can make something better. You can't make it better if you don't acknowledge what's right in front of you. And it is okay to have a discussion about what's right for Australia, and it doesn't make you racist to do so. I wish all of you a happy and safe Christmas and New Year period, and I'll be talking to you sometime next year. Um, thank you for um listening, watching. Please like, share, subscribe, all of those things, and give me your feedback. Um, I'm always happy to talk to people who are respectful, but if you're abusive, I just won't even engage in that. Okay, I hope you have a great um Christmas and I will see you all next year. Thanks. Bye bye.

unknown:

Bye.

Head Shot

Fiona Kane

Host