Into the darkness

Last weekend in Perth I had a couple of unsettling experiences, both of which caught me off guard. First up, I was a guest at a progressive Christian church and feeling a little subversive given my family history of sectarian nut-jobbery a mere generation ago. With my Irish surname safely tucked out of sight, I sat comfortably, admiring the stark Calvinist interior— a little bland without the sword-pierced hearts and bleeding images of my childhood churches, but a lot less disturbing.

Everything about the service was pleasant: a gifted pianist, warm parishioners, lovely hymns. The preacher began mildly, commenting on the decline in Christian-identifying people in the last census, then quickly shifted gears. She asked if anyone knew the most common baby name in England, and I waited for her to say “Mohammed,” which she did. Being still in my kumbaya-this-is-a-groovy-pro-refugee-church state of mind, I half-expected her to follow it with something expansive—about the vitality of faith across traditions, or the way different religions might support each other in an increasingly secular world. After all, you only have to look at how the Sikhs appear like clockwork in every flood or bushfire, rolling up with food and comfort, or when Kyle Sandilands made those cheap cracks about the Virgin Mary and outraged Muslims jumped up to defend upset Catholics.

But no—that wasn’t where she was heading. Instead of seeing opportunities for shared understanding, she framed Islam as a threat, urging the congregation to circle the wagons as a way of encouraging more people to participate in the church.  By the time the prayers came—for Gaza, for the Israeli hostages, for peace and healing, the only messages I was left with were hollowness and restriction and meanness and fear. It was very dispiriting, and, on reflection, unsurprising.

Far worse though, was a conversation I had later that day with a very dear, very old friend whom I hadn’t seen in quite a while. This guy is famed for his generosity to a fault, lending money when he has little to spare, and always being that person who gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. We’d had a great catchup, swapping gossip and news and reminiscing about the past. He is a great homebody like me, and said that he loved nothing more than snuggling down with his electric blanket, watching Youtube and “going down a rabbit hole”. I’d vaguely remembered that at the height of the pandemic, we had disagreed on vaccines, and he had elected to lose his job rather than take the vaccine, which surprised me. We hadn’t fallen out over this, as he was generally quite a reasonable fellow, and the only person he had disadvantaged was himself really. I had filed this away in my mind, reflecting that he was obviously more susceptible to misinformation than I had realised, but it had never caused me any alarm. I had forgotten what a gateway drug these beliefs can be to darker viewpoints however, so when our conversation turned to our local community, I was unprepared for what he said next.  We both have homes in Perth’s vibrant, multicultural northern suburbs, so I was really shocked when he burst out with : “I just think there are too many people from all over the place around here. I mean, I walk down the street and see women in saris, and so many Africans and…” He must have seen the look on my face because he attempted to soften the tirade, saying “ Well, don’t you miss the fact that things are not the same as when we were kids? The Australian culture we knew is just disappearing? And they are just letting migrants in without any checks at all”. At least I was able to confidently refute this last piece of nonsense-I mean a five minute Google search would give you all the information you need on the multiple checks, balances, hoops, triple-backflips, hurdles and years involved in migrating to Australia. (For more on this, check out this link):

Are Australia’s Immigration Laws Strict?

I finished up the visit pretty quickly after this.  I needed some time to process everything  I’d heard that day. The church thing wasn’t that hard to reconcile. Hearing a mainstream church express restrictive, unkind views wasn’t exactly a first, but my mate’s pronouncements really stuck in my throat. How could such a kind, generous person who would share his last ten bucks with you have become so small-minded, so selfish and callous? The common thread in both of these interactions was fear, and yet both parties were afraid of the wrong things. They were afraid of change, which is understandable, because as humans, we feel much safer when everything stays the same. Yet they were unable to see the looming train of catastrophe screaming towards them and their communities at high speed. My friend thinks that the people marching against immigration on the 31st August are trying to make Australia a safer place, when the movement they are backing is making the country more dangerous, unstable and hateful. He was unable to see that the invisible strings behind this march are being pulled by people who don’t give a shit about “Australian culture”. He had happily picked up a digestible bait, laced with the poison of a thousand mutations of hatred and dehumanisation over the course of history, all leading to the same end.  The preacher at the church thought that emphasizing differences between faith groups would energise her own. The average age in that congregation was 75 years old, so existing efforts at renewal were clearly not working. We say that we lament the hatred, division and violence we see in the world, yet seem unwilling to make even the smallest efforts in our own surroundings and connections.

I have lived in Margaret River since the 1980’s, and I have to concede, that in 2025, it is a very different, and less convenient place to live, due to the overwhelming influx of overseas visitors every year. For six months of the year, I can’t turn right onto Caves Road, access a desk the library, park at the pool or the gym or cross the main street without risking my life. It’s annoying. Only last summer I found myself crushed into a corner of my favourite booth at the library by a beautiful young lady, with sparkling silver rings on her very dirty toes, sitting cross-legged on the nice upholstery. She had an entire DJ mixing desk occupying two-thirds of the table and was loving herself sick to whatever AI-generated doof she was listening to. Naturally, I was miffed. Surely the fairly useless PhD I was working on was far more worthy of the desk space than the musical needs of my continental desk-mate. I could have done the Karen, but I thought, no. Maybe keep tapping away at whatever grindingly dull theory I was rehashing, and at a suitable break in the headphone-wearing, strike up a bit of a conversation, which of course I did. We had a great yarn, I heard all about her family in Portugal, her studies in occupational therapy and our shared dismay over the state of the aged care industry. She was working on creating a layered soundscape for the residents in her nursing home who had dementia.  I had to climb over her in the end to exit the booth, but we parted with a warmth and shared understanding which wouldn’t have happened if I’d stayed in my state of xenophobic rage. Maybe next time I wouldn’t be so charitable, but at least I would know that I was being an intolerant arsehole, and wouldn’t have to pretend that I was just “standing up for the local culture” (i.e. what suits me, me, me).

 Life’s already hard. Surely we can all do a tiny little bit in our own corners to lighten the load. Oh, and if you’re thinking of marching on 31st August-please don’t. Migrants aren’t the problem. Selfishness is.