By Kevin Hillier
The events of last Friday in Bourke Street will haunt us all for some time. As disturbing and distressing as the images were, I wonder if we are becoming desensitised to violence. The footage of dozens of people within metres of the incident, all with phones in hand – seemingly more intent on getting film than getting out of there – is a measure of our siege mentality.
The explosions, the knife-wielding assailant, police with arms drawn and the cacophony of sirens did little to curb the onlookers from capturing the moment. Footage of the victim lying on the footpath was shared on social media, as well as the moment police shot the assailant.
This was eyewitness news – but not via commercial television. Remember this was not a Hollywood movie – this was real life in the middle of the city we live in. Yet people were filming it like it was the local school play.
The tone changed when the victim went from nameless bystander to a Melbourne icon – Sisto Malaspina from Pellegrini’s.
Any loss in these circumstances is tragic. The whole event is traumatic, yet it seems to have become something of a platform for many to legitimise their anger and spew volumes of hateful words and thoughts across social media directed at various people and organisations.
Making sense out of these types of events is near impossible for me and many others I imagine. I am saddened by the event and the aftermath. I am concerned that the gravity of such acts is being dissipated in a sea of social media vitriol and lost in a sound cloud of mobile phone videos alongside animal tricks and media bloopers.
We need clarity free from phones, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and everything else that invades our thinking time – to reflect on this tragedy and similar ones of recent times.
How do we explain this to our children when we have trouble grasping it ourselves? We know we cannot live in fear but nor can we live in a cocooned, virtual world.
The deaths were real. This happened in our city. Sadly that is reality.
