For Sydney’s tight-knit Assyrian community, Monday’s terrorist attack in a church was confronting and triggering for a long-persecuted people. But it was not a reflection of the multicultural community where the parents of nearly 80 per cent of residents were born overseas.
Out the front of Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, in Fairfield City in Sydney’s west, on Thursday afternoon there are almost no signs that NSW Police had declared a terrorism incident only a few days earlier.
“The church is the central being of our culture. There is also cultural familiarity. Everybody wants to be around family, especially new migrants who may have issues with language and cultural assimilation,” Marano says.While he says the community knows Monday’s attack is not illustrative of the Islamic faith and Muslims, it is triggering for a community that has dealt with significant persecution in the Middle East.
Both Kanna and Marano say they quickly found out about the attack in messages from friends and saw it spread quickly over social media. Esho says a distrust of established media, authority and politicians emerged, particularly among young people. The attack at the church reverberated through the Assyrian community – even for secular members – because it was centred on a place of community and religious observance.
“They’ve all escaped from different things,” he says. Kanna’s father arrived in Australia in 1966. “There were economic reasons. But, there was also Arab nationalism.”
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