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Sydney stabbing incidents stoke Islamophobia, antisemitism as social tensions in Australia unravel

  • Two stabbing incidents involving a man and a teenager have put Australia’s social tensions under the spotlight
  • Some Australian Muslims say the police have applied double standards in their initial investigations of the two cases

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People on Thursday view the floral tributes for victims of the stabbing attacks which killed several people at the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre in Sydney, Australia. Photo: Reuters
Su-Lin Tanin Singapore
As reports of stabbings in Sydney’s Bondi Junction started trickling in last Saturday, Bondi resident JJ Chen prayed for the victims but also found herself hoping that the perpetrator was not from a minority group.

An Asian-Australian, Chen knows too well how quickly blame for the crime will fall on migrants and “non-white foreigners”.

The man who stabbed and killed six people in the popular Westfield Bondi Junction mall turned out to be 40-year-old Queensland native Joel Cauchi, who reportedly had a history of mental illness.

Police officers walk outside the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre as it reopens to the public for the first time after the stabbing attacks which killed several people at the shopping centre, in Sydney, Australia, on Friday. Photo: Reuters
Police officers walk outside the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre as it reopens to the public for the first time after the stabbing attacks which killed several people at the shopping centre, in Sydney, Australia, on Friday. Photo: Reuters

But what disappointed Chen most was that long before Cauchi’s identity was revealed, misinformation and disinformation about the perpetrator had spread with many unverified claims that the attacker was Muslim, while migrants were also blamed.

“Many of us Aussies feel excluded in mainstream Australian society shaped by the white Australian policy hangover, [and] find it hard to be accepted at face value and as a consequence wear a handicap for being non-white,” she said.

While Muslim Australians were still expressing their anger online and many across the country were still reeling from shock, two days later, a 16-year-old stabbed a bishop in a church in Sydney.

The Australian police and intelligence agency has charged the teenager with committing a “terrorist offence”, following evidence of religious motivations.

The separate major knife incidents shed light on a worrying undercurrent in society, fuelled by a cocktail of tensions over rising Islamophobia and antisemitism, deepening mental health problems and the poor treatment of women, as well as divisions fuelled by online falsehoods and anger over geopolitical issues such as the Israel-Gaza war.
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