Courage today or calamity tomorrow

Are we now so frightened that we hesitate to attend community events, gather publicly, or stand beside Jewish friends and neighbours? If so, we must ask a harder question: will it be any better for our children and grandchildren if we retreat?

I do not believe so. I believe things will worsen unless enough decent Australians decide that fear cannot be our organising principle.

Over the Anzac Day weekend, I reflected deeply on those who came before us. Many gave much. Some gave all. They did not pass the baton to us so we could avert our eyes, lower our voices, or stay home when courage was required. They passed it to us so we might carry it.

Recently, I heard a Jewish friend say, almost in passing, that Jews are not good fighters. With respect, that is baloney. Jewish history is one long testimony to endurance, courage, adaptation and the refusal to disappear. L’chaim – to life – is not merely a toast. It is a declaration. And what greater cause is there to fight for than life?

That thought returned to me while reflecting on my friend Ben Adler and the extraordinary people of SHIR, the Australian Jewish Music Festival. The SHIR community’s concerts are preserving memory, identity, joy and culture in the face of doxxing, gaslighting, cancellation, quiet exclusion, rabid Jew hatred, bigotry, and the complicity of those who should know better.

When monsters try to intimidate us into absence, the answer must be presence. When they try to darken the room, the answer must be to shine more light. If we choose not to show up now, it will not become easier for our children and grandchildren. It will become harder.

We live in an age of abundant activism. Climate change, environmental protection, social justice and other fashionable causes command enormous energy and social currency. I am not someone who says these causes have no merit. Many do. But we must measure them within a wider context.

Too often, it feels as though we are standing before a house where the letterbox is on fire. It is a lovely letterbox, freshly painted. A lot of people are looking at the flames and wanting someone to do something. Some people rush toward it with buckets and moral urgency.

But I feel increasingly like the person saying: “Excuse me, something is happening in your blind spot. Your Federation terrace house behind you is also on fire.”

The house is our nation: Australia. The terrace houses to the left and right are other nations of the Anglosphere. The street is Western civilisation itself – our shared values, our capacity to tell the truth, our willingness to defend the innocent, and our courage to name evil when it appears.

The whole street has smoke rising. There has been acrid smoke for some time. Now we are beginning to see flame. We saw it at Bondi on December 14, 2025. We see it when Jewish Australians require barriers, bollards, police and armed security simply to gather as a community.

Some have lit fires in their own floorboards. Others have invited known arsonists inside and called it tolerance. The hour is late, and it remains unclear whether we, the owners, still possess the will to save the house.

But this cannot simply be a complaint about institutions, politicians, universities, media, or communal leaders. Responsibility begins with us. Each of us must decide whether we will be a spectator or a citizen; whether we will whisper privately or stand publicly; whether we will outsource courage or embody it.

Bret Stephens has written powerfully about the need for Jews not to hide their Jewishness, but to wear it proudly. I would go further. In this hour, Jewish faith, culture, memory and pride should not be concealed as vulnerabilities. They should be worn like the flame-retardant ensemble they are: protective, hard-earned, dignified and life-preserving.

By all means, put out the fire on the letterbox. But please also turn your head and see what is happening in your blind spot.

My view is shaped by more than three decades in the profession of arms. I have seen up close what Joseph Conrad called the Heart of Darkness. Threats ignored do not disappear. Fires left unattended do not remain contained.

In Sydney’s Paddington, terrace houses share common walls. When one burns, the flames spread. They do not stop to ask whether the next door bears a mezuzah or not. Jewish and gentile homes alike are consumed.

That is the point. Antisemitism never ends with Jews.

So; be strong now. Show up now. Compete now – in the public square, in culture, in friendship, in truth. Put on your flame-resistant smalls – and let us put these fires out through principled agency. Courage is contagious.

Example summons others from the crowd. When we step forward, others will step forward too. But if we do not, and if we continue obsessing over the letterbox while the house burns, then when the baton passes to our children and grandchildren, the problem may simply be too great for them to solve.

Colonel Michael Scott CSC Ret’d is a former Australian army officer and the founder of The 2023 Foundation, an initiative dedicated to combating antisemitism.