As we remember those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom in two world wars, little did we realise that the same hatred would emerge from within our privileged communities here in Australia and across other Western democratic nations.

The war with Islamist extremists never ended with the demise of ISIS. Instead, this global insurgency manoeuvred into the next phase of its plan. This was made easier as the environment was created for hundreds of thousands of Western-hating, fighting-aged males to freely cross into Europe and other Western countries during the civil war in Syria. The same government-endorsed phenomenon continues on the Southern border of the United States and into Europe through Italy and the United Kingdom. All this insurgency had to do was patiently wait for the right moment and then use the sanctuaries secured in generous Western countries to drive its campaign into the heart of all facets of our Judaeo-Christian society. The plan has been evolutionary, with moments of revolutionary fever, as we are now witnessing. In the history of guerilla warfare, insurgents are rarely defeated when they have sanctuary. Before being killed in mid-2003, Saudi-born Shaykh Youssef Al-Ayyiri, one of al Qaeda’s key strategists and best communicators said, ‘The entire world has become a battlefield, and not in theory.’ It is a fight beyond time and geography. Don’t be foolish to believe these mass protests are only about Palestine and Israel.

The terrorism unleashed by Hamas in collaboration with Iran, on October 7, 2023, is one of these revolutionary moments. Its aim is to advance the insurgency as the West looks weak. Its means is to use Western enablers to mainstream their cause. Terrorism is the tactic used by the insurgent to push forth their strategy. The strategy is co-opting as many nodes of power and influence as possible within our civil society, using our principles against us. The success of this strategy is now evident as the October 7 attack was as much a psychological operation as it was a physical act of terrorism. And it worked. The sight of many Western women celebrating or offering excuses for a movement that rapes, mutilates, and kills women is an example. While Israel is using rockets to defend civilians and Hamas is using civilians to defend its rockets, many University lecturers, media commentators, and democratically elected politicians have become willing participants to the insurgency. The very people we looked to for guidance, turned the terrorists into the victims and the victims into the terrorists. Many of our politicians cannot distinguish between the evil acts of the terrorists and the desperate plight of the people in Palestine. Even our grandfathers knew the enemy was not the ordinary German man or woman.

As we witness mass protests and civil unrest, it’s during moments like these the fragility of our society is revealed. Right now, these protesters are preparing to trample on the souls of those who fought for their right to protest.

Ancient Greek statesman, Pericles (495-429 BC), gave one of the most powerful funeral orations in history. A remembrance speech to honour the fallen that has become a tradition in all civilised peoples. It was a speech about what Athens had to lose. Like us, realising what we have right now, ensures past and future sacrifices are not in vain. It was a speech about what had been gained, what had been won and a love for what Athens represents. An ideal connecting words with deeds. Now we are taught to loathe our history. The sacrifice for Athens, as with many of our grandparents, was made by those resisting, not submitting, to fear. A generation driven by honour, not deceit, and a self-interest connected to something greater than themselves. Human nature has, and always will, be guided by fear, self interest, and honour.

In 1942 George Orwell wrote that if you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help the other. Orwell argued that ‘the idea that one can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security’. Many seem to have overlooked this lesson in their effort to acquiesce to the Islamist extremist cause.

What these Western politicians and all other manner of Woke causes joining the calls ‘from the river to the sea’ haven’t considered is that under Hamas and other Islamist extremist groups, they too would be brutally punished. Yet not a single one of them, including the lawyers, are prepared to pay any price.

Right now, on so many levels, we are in a fight for the soul of the West. That’s what Israel represents. That’s also what the ordinary soldiers in the Ukraine are fighting to protect. Yet right now, on so many levels, we are witnessing how so much damage can be done by so few to the lives of so many. Tanks, submarines, Javelins, F-16s, and Patriot battery systems, are not ends in themselves. They are useless if we don’t believe in our nation. Big or small, conflict runs along a moral, mental, and physical continuum. It is ordinary people like you who pay the price when freedom is removed. It is ordinary people who pay the price to defend freedom, and it is ordinary people who pay the price of vigilance to prevent those planning to take our freedoms. For the requirements to win wars and to deter them are same.

It was ordinary Australians who fought in Flanders fields, Gallipoli, Kokoda, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Ordinary Australians who left their ordinary lives to fight for an extraordinary cause of freedom and democracy. In the history of human civilisation freedom and democracy are extraordinary. And as Pericles said, freedom is the sure possession of those who have the courage to defend it.