We cannot fight an evil we refuse to name

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In a powerful address at Parliament House for Rally for Light, Erin Molan spoke directly to the Jewish community about how Australians have failed the Jewish community and why it’s time for the silent majority to finally speak out. 

A very different occasion to the one that we had envisaged when this was planned a couple of months ago, unfortunately.

I want to thank you, first of all for coming. I know there were a lot more people who registered, but we can understand the fear in the community. We can understand why it’s easier to stay home. We can understand why people maybe aren’t doing the things they normally would.

To be here, is so brave, and I thank you so so much. Because we cannot let them win. And when we stop doing what we want to do, and when we stop fighting for what we believe in, we let them win. So, I thank you.

I don’t ever write speeches or prepare in a kind of traditional way for these kind of events, because I like to speak to you from the heart. I want you to know that what I’m saying is authentic. I believe it. I feel that it’s real.

This occasion felt bigger to me because of what happened in Bondi. And yesterday, I sat down and I tried to write words, and I started again, and I actually just stopped myself and thought, ‘no, I’m going to do what I’ve always done’, which is just talk to you from the heart. So please don’t think it’s a lack of care or preparedness that I don’t have a script here. It’s because I want to just tell you what I feel and what I think, which is, which is what I normally do.

I’ve also been told to be conscious of the fact we are in Parliament House. I’ll say that I heard that, and I’ll take it on board, but I will tell you exactly what I think.

People kept saying after last Sunday that they were shocked, they were horrified, but they weren’t surprised. If anyone was surprised by what occurred at one of the most iconic locations in Australia, they’ve been living under a rock for two years.

Australians have failed your community in the most horrific of ways.

I’m a proud Australian. I’m a patriotic Australian. I love the Australian flag. I love this country. My dad went to war for this country. He was willing to give his life for this country.

For the first time in my entire life, I have felt immense shame. And that’s a very uncomfortable feeling for me when it comes to this nation. And I first felt that shame, not last Sunday, though there was a whole heap of it then as well. But the Opera House was the first time I had felt shame. And not just shame at what was allowed to occur on that day where jihadists and terrorist sympathisers and terrorists celebrated the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. They cheered, they sang, they danced. That wasn’t what caused my shame, even though it was disgusting, because every society will have evil. You will never entirely eradicate your society of evil.

What terrified me, what disappointed me, what broke my heart, was the silence of fellow Australians in the aftermath. The silence of our leaders, the silence of every community leader, every religious leader, every business owner, every neighbour to come out and say, ‘not on our watch, not today, not on this land, not here, not now’.

But we didn’t get that, did we?

And then we saw an escalation, and we saw synagogues firebombed. We saw cars set alight outside prominent Jewish homes. We saw your kids’ schools covered in the most disgusting filth, your children harassed. We saw a Harbour Bridge with a march of 100,000 people with terrorist flags flying ISIS, Al-Qaeda, take your pick, the Taliban, chanting, ‘death to Jews, death to the IDF’. We had politicians leading from the front, the faces of terrorists responsible for the most horrific mass murders, held up like heroes.

Did anyone on that bridge pay a price? Not for free speech. That ain’t free speech. The answer is no.

And I don’t need to tell you all what the last couple of years have been like for your community. I live in a very Jewish area. My daughter goes to school with a lot of beautiful Jewish kids. My closest friends are now Jewish, and I know that for many of you have not breathed. Your chest has been tight. You have felt the weight of the world on your shoulders. When this community, this country, should have wrapped its arms collectively around you post October 7, the horrors you’ve had to endure, they did the opposite. They made you feel like criminals, like extremists, like murderers.

Not one Jewish person I have ever met ever asked this country to choose between them and kids in Gaza, ever. But that’s how it was suddenly framed. It was complete insanity, and it was all allowed to happen, and not just by weak leadership, but my Lord, they have been weak, and it would be criminal of me to stand up here and pretend otherwise, just because we are here in this building. I will show respect absolutely to the occasion and to the place, but I will not lie.

They have been horrifically weak, and it has cost lives.

After October 7, I did not find anything complex when it came to identifying good versus evil. It was very clear to me from the word go. If my fellow Australians now, having experienced this in their own backyard, cannot look at Sunday and determine which side they are on, then we are screwed.

We are screwed.

There is a side of good, and there is a side of evil.

There is the side of good, decent, peaceful people celebrating life and love. And then there is a side of evil who wants to destroy it all. There is one side who reflects what the Australia I know and love and what we should be, and there is one side who stands against all of it. I’ve seen so many calls from the Prime Minister and others who have been, I mean, the ones who have been silent bad enough, but the ones who have stoked this hate and perpetuated it and promoted it and generated it, calling for unity, and don’t let this divide us.

I would say to them, we can sit in a circle and we can hold hands, and we can sing Kumbaya till the cows come home, but if we are not willing to do what is hard, our kids will still die. They will still die. We cannot fight an evil we refuse to name.

Radical Islam.

It is not that hard. It should not be offensive to anyone, Muslim, Jew, Christian. It is evil, and it must be called for what it is.

We must fight it.

My beautiful dad, who many of you in this room know, he used to say, we cannot fight an enemy we don’t understand. We cannot defeat an evil we cannot comprehend. And that is true. So if we can’t even name it, what hope do we have?

I say to immigrants in this country, stand with us. The vast majority of whom I know are incredibly decent people, a lot of them are in this room. You’ve come to this country, you’ve embraced our way of life. You are grateful for the opportunity, and that is a wonderful thing, and we embrace you, and we love you for it. Don’t let this country turn into the homes you had to flee. Because Sunday was not just a one off that ends. It’s up to us what it becomes. It can become that, or it can become the catalyst for a further degradation into hell. And it’s up to all of us now to determine which way we go, because we can’t rely on leadership. We can’t rely on those that we put into office, not with the kind of, if they feel like it, to protect us. If their number one duty is to protect every single person in this country, then they have failed miserably.

There is hope. Of course, there is hope. This week has been incredibly hard for all of us, I know, but in the midst of this tragedy and this pain, as I have seen with this Jewish community the entire time, you blow my mind. You should be in the fetal position in the corner, but you are not.

You are phenomenally strong people. You still see light, you still love. It defines you alongside your strength, your ability to see light and to still feel love. And that’s what struck me.

And I often say I don’t feel like this is offensive to people I may have known prior who I didn’t consider friends, but I didn’t really have a Jewish friend before October 7. Now I’ve become somewhat a little bit popular, which is lovely. And what I’ve learned and what I’ve seen and what I’ve watched is I look at one side, when they come together, they chant for death, ‘intifada, river to the sea’. The other side, the only thing I’ve heard them chant since October 7 is ‘bring them home’. That’s all they’ve wanted.

So if you just want a basic test as to which side you think this country might have more in common with, the terrorists or the non terrorists, I think it’s a pretty easy one to pass.

I want to leave you with, I mean, hope is, hope is everything, isn’t it? It is absolutely everything. And I don’t apologise for getting emotional, because I’ve always been an emotional person. And I remember with my beautiful dad, who I talk about often, because he was the greatest influence on my life. He was Major General, Jim Molan, Senator Jim Molan, an incredible Australian, a great ally to this Jewish community.

We lost him to prostate cancer a couple of years ago, and I used to say to mum and my siblings, ‘I’m okay. I will survive as long as they as they give us hope, as long as we have hope’.

And I remember so clearly the moment they took that hope, when they said, ‘we’ve tried everything, and for whatever reason, he’s not responding’. You know, Al-Qaeda tried to kill him in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Middle East. None of them could. This did, though, unfortunately, and that’s the moment that I broke, is when they took hope. The one thing we must promise ourselves, and we must stick with and we must stay strong, is to not ever let these scumbags take our hope. Never, ever, ever.

And they won’t, I know they won’t.

Because you’re too strong and you’re too powerful and you’re too amazing, and your kids deserve you to never lose hope. This country is full of the most incredible people. I know that.

And I hope, if anything comes out of this, that we can even frame in some ways positive, and I know that’s hard now, only a week after, let it be that this country, this silent majority, finds its roar.

And on your behalf, comes out and does what every Australian I know can do and should do, and that is stand not just alongside you, and not just stand there, but speak for you, shut down hate.

In 100 years, our kids’ kids and their kids’ kids will learn about this moment. They will learn about what happened on Sunday. They will learn about the incredible acts of bravery, and almost more importantly, they will learn about what this country did next.

Please G-d, let it be the most inspiring lesson, and not another lesson in failure and weakness and moral cowardice.

I have hope, and I hope that you all do as well.

Thank you so much for having me.

Watch Erin’s speech below