Yesterday’s tragedy at Bondi has hit hard. As the gravity and horror sinks in, we will all feel much worse before we start to feel better.

Like a stone thrown in a pond its ripples radiate widely, and they will pulse for many years, if not forever.

Bondi Beach is my backyard. Our family life is built around North Bondi Surf Club and the beach. My son was running the bar at the Surf Club yesterday when it was turned into a makeshift field hospital where many of the wounded and terrified were tended to by him and his fellow club members (the very best of our community). My youngest daughter was staffing the North Bondi RSL. Both were subjected to the horror of the events. But this is really nothing compared to the devastation, loss, and anguish felt by the many souls who were murdered (as that is what happened yesterday) or have been terribly wounded, and their family, friends, and wider circles.

Bondi Beach draws all comers to its warm embrace. Old and young, rich, and poor, people of all backgrounds and religions. In our mind’s search for a symbol of the ‘Australian way of life’ – an image of the aquatic arc of Bondi framed by its ageing Art Deco unit blocks and craggy headlands springs quickly to mind. What Sydneysider or tourist has not visited the Bondi Pavilion and enjoyed a swim or an ice cream or a stroll along the promenade with their family and friends?

The evil events of Sunday have cast a shadow over our iconic beach and provoke the deeper question of whether our egalitarian, open, and safe society is now just an illusion or will become a nostalgic memory for those old enough to remember it… Wounds heal with time but the scars, real and metaphorical, remain.

At this time, it’s impossible not to feel let down and failed by our institutions: political, educational, and executive. Of course, none of them willed for this to happen but the conditions for terror have been enabled. A government’s first and paramount role is to create a safe society for its citizens. We are not safe. Not only our Jewish brothers and sisters, who have been pushed to the brink and beyond just for who they are, but none of us.

At times like this our leaders are forced to say obvious things: ‘there is no place for anti- Semitism’; ‘this terror will not be tolerated’; ‘this is not our country’ and so on and so forth.

All these statements are wrong, or at least disingenuous.

There is a place for antisemitism. For a start, in our government-funded universities and, in the minds, and mouths of certain elected politicians. In the mosques and gatherings that preach hatred and bloodshed. The terror is tolerated. Perhaps not its most extremes manifestations but when violent speech is allowed to flourish it begets violent acts. It is our country. We have all allowed the well to be poisoned by not holding our leaders and institutions to account.

So, when we hear these utterances from our leaders, they don’t salve the anger, sadness, and horror. They only compound these feelings.

Of course, fanning the flames of division and violence is not the role of a true leader and opportunistic politicking at a time like this is abhorrent. Equally, leaders need to be honest, admit failure, address real proven concerns and do everything needed to minimise the risk of repetition. If our leaders don’t respond to this unfathomable tragedy in this way our society will plunge into a longer and blacker darkness.

The dead and wounded simply cannot be allowed to have suffered in vain. We all owe it to their legacy to make Australia a better place than it has become.

This starts with sensible but strong engagement in our democratic processes. For love and community to prevail, our citizenry needs to become active, build bridges, demand more from our institutions, show love to our neighbours and resist the barbaric and medieval elements of our society which would seek to destroy us from within.

Andrew Christopher is a lawyer and writer