Mob justice is not divine justice. Don’t fan the flames of tensions we escaped

Christians believe that on the night before his death, Jesus was arrested on the Mount of Olives. That night, one of his disciples cut the right ear off a man named Malchus, who was a servant of a high priest who played a role in Jesus’ capture. And even though he was being led away to be tortured and killed, Jesus still healed the man’s ear, giving his disciples an arguably obvious lesson: violence begets violence.

This was the Bible story that I thought of as I lay in bed on Monday night, unable to sleep and triggered by footage of a 16-year-old boy allegedly stabbing Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley and the riots that followed afterwards.

Still reeling from the stabbing murder of six innocent people at Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday, I felt (for the umpteenth time this year) that the world felt increasingly divided and unsafe. And, if messages to my Instagram account were anything to go by, I was not the only one.

The events of Monday night will be triggering for many people whose homelands have been marred by sectarian violence. The Assyrian Christian communities, whose members in Iraq suffered immensely under the Islamic State, have every reason to feel upset, angry or hurt.

Many of these communities found themselves in this country to avoid the persecution that has nearly obliterated Christianity in Iraq following the American-led invasion and hoped to find safety here. Other Christian communities, who have also faced persecution in some parts of Nigeria, Pakistan and Egypt, feel the same, as do Muslim minorities who were also victims of IS in Iraq and Syria.

So do the many Muslims in my circles, who often immediately wait with bated breath when there’s a public scenario unfolding, desperately hoping that the attacker does not identify with them lest they be roped back into the pervasive sense of otherness and experiences of marginalisation they faced in the aftermath of September 11, the Bali bombings, Paris terror attacks and more. Some remain fearful that Australia’s rising white supremacy will bring an attack like the Christchurch massacre – in which 51 Muslim worshippers were killed in two mosques – to their own places of worship.

All of these communities, no matter their differences, hold their spiritual identities extremely close. They are sacred.

As an Australian of Lebanese descent, I am incredibly conscious of the role that sectarianism played in the Lebanese civil war. I made a decision not to inherit the conflicts of the past (and of another nation) while I built my life here. I made friendships with people of all creeds and of none while maintaining pride and understanding of my identity.