A true heroine and humanitarian has emerged from the siege at the Lindt Chocolat Coffee House in Sydney, Australia and she was nowhere near the cafe.
Rachel Jacobs was riding on a train there and noticed a Muslim woman quietly removing her head covering. She posted about the incident on her Facebook page:
In her post she said: "I ran after her at the train station. I said 'put it back on. I'll walk with u."
Another woman took to Twitter and wrote: "If you reg take the bus b/w Coogee/Martin PL, wear religious attire, &don't feel safe alone: I'll ride withyou. @me for schedule."
The woman, Twitter user @sirtessa, then suggested "maybe start a hashtag? What's in #illridewithyou?"
Sirtessa is now know to be the user name of Tessa Kum who deserves equal credit for the hashtag. (Hat tip to Bvue Dem for the information)
Since then the hashtag has spread like wildfire across Australia and round the rest of the world. Her response to the faux terrorist attack (we now know the gunman was using Islam as a veneer to hide his history of sex crimes and Westbro Baptist Church type letters to the widows of killed Australian military) perfectly summed up the defining Australian characteristic which is part of its national myth - mateship.
The USA has a national myth, much invoked, of the "American Dream", the belief that through effort anyone can achieve. This article contrasts that with Australian "Mateship"
Unlike America, Australian myths have very little to do with realising one's ambition. Instead, myths based around mateship, egalitarianism, and a belief in a fair go aim to achieve a peaceful society where people don't feel either superior or inferior and where the underdogs are supported.
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At times, critics of Australian myths have been a bit obsessive about trying to point out such examples of inequality. For example, the 1993 Australian Education Union's curriculum policy stipulated that children must be taught that they "are living in a multicultural and class-based society that is diverse and characterised by inequality and social conflict".
Even though Australia is not a society of equals, there is a myth that it should be and this myth shapes how Australians engage with one another. Australia is a society where a coal miner may sit down with a winemaker, billionaire, and civic leader to share a beer without any feeling that any of them are inferior to any other. (Not many other countries have people from different classes and different ethnic groups socialising across social boundaries to the degree that they do in Australia.)
Although the Lindt Chocolat siege was more the desperate publicity seeking of a criminal seeking to justify his actions, Rachel has both epitomized and evoked Australian mateship to challenge ignorant and xenophobic reactions to it which threatened to target a group. That in itself is the most effective response to a terrorist or pseudo-terrorist attack. A similar response was made to the 7/7 bombings on the London transport system. There the British national myth of the "Blitz spirit" was evoked by the
"We are not afraid" campaign. Rather less reported internationally was a campaign organized by the Mayor "One London" to promote cross-community solidarity.
I found this piece by Jonathan Freedland written a year after the 7/7/05 bombings which analyses the reaction.
in the immediate aftermath of the killings, it seemed as if not just those directly involved, but London, even Britain itself, would be transformed. There was, for example, an instant decline in tube travel: the accounts of choking terror deep below the ground had surely put travellers off. Hence the immediate 30% drop in weekend use and 15% fall during the week. And most presumed the image, repeated on a thousand front pages, of the wrecked number 30 bus, its roof ripped open like a sardine can, would scare people away from the buses. There was a surge in walking to work, aided by the fine July sunshine. Bike shops reported a boom; London's cycle lanes felt more crowded than ever before.
But appearances were deceptive. The spike in bike use, amounting to an extra 4,000 cycle journeys a day, lasted precisely a fortnight. Then it went back to normal. Close examination revealed that the 15% drop in daily tube use matched the loss of capacity due to line closures, forced by the attacks. Once the lines were back open in September, the underground reported a return to regular business, with a 6% rise in the months since. As for bus use, it went up almost immediately.
Freedland goes on to consider the city's deeper reactions to the bombs.
This jaded, world-weary tone in London's voice is a crucial component of the famous Blitz spirit, not so much courage, as a stoic fatalism born of grim experience. After July 7, it was combined with a new message, one aimed at those who had no inherited memory of 1940, the 30 to 40% of today's Londoners who were born outside Britain. The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, urged "this wonderful great diverse city" to be "one united community against atrocity".
That call, echoed again in the mass vigil staged by Ken Livingstone at Trafalgar Square a week after the bombings, where the mayor hailed London as "the world in one city", was heeded - more or less. There was, it's true, a surge in anti-Muslim attacks immediately after the bombings. Police recorded 300 hate crime incidents in less than a week, including the killing of a man in Nottingham after anti-Muslim abuse was shouted at him.
But by August the feared backlash had receded; anti-Muslim attacks returned to their 2004 levels. The British National Party tried to capitalise on 7/7 in local elections earlier this year, but few believe it had much effect. Even in Barking and Dagenham, where the party did make substantial gains, most analysts agreed the increase was driven by an "anti-foreign", rather than anti-Muslim, post 7/7 sentiment.
On that last point, the effect has continued. UKIP, the BNP's successor in the right wing xenophobic party slot signally failed to make achieve the same success in London as it did in the rest of the country in this year's European Parliament elections.
I should also point out another national myth or characteristic shared by both the UK and Australia which helped to reduce attacks on Muslims in Britain and helped inspire #illridewithyou - that of the belief in "fair play". Manifestly, the killings were undertaken by a miniscule minority. Blaming others in a group for the actions of individuals is the antithesis of "fair play".