Sadness - From Lindt to The Daily Telegraph

This morning I woke up with the heaviest of heart. There was ping on my phone and when I picked it up the message read “What happened? Why 3 ppl dead?”

I immediately logged on to ABC News 24 and found out two hostages were killed over night in the Lindt café siege. The gunman was also killed but that did not compensate the loss of innocent lives because of someone’s extreme agenda.

I have been following the case since it started yesterday at 9.45am. I immediately called a friend who works opposite to the café to make sure she is alright. The whole city was thrown into panic. We all hope there would be a peaceful resolution.

With this ended in bloodshed, nobody in this beautiful city is unaffected. The #MartinPlace and #SydneySiege had been trending on social media in the last 24 hours. We all held our breath and watched helplessly. As more information comes dripping out from the official channels, more questions were asked. There are scrutinies on the operation and there are questions whether the judicial system failed the society because of the ocean deep criminal records the gunman had. For me apart from extreme sadness when my eye swelled up during breakfast, I couldn’t help but ask why did things come down to this? What went wrong?

During the course of events, I was extremely angry when The Daily Telegraph published an obviously cash in edition of the paper sensationalising the whole incident while it was still happening. I am never a fan of the practice of News Corps, or some called it the News Corpse, but taking advantage of the situation to sensationalise a story that you have no information of just to push your agenda and sales is beyond low. This morning when ABC interviewed the editor, he was non-repentant saying that they made good judgement of what they saw in the pictures and thus the headline and the story. They said they can justify their move and did not care what the public thinks. He even went further about capitalising the incident as they see there will be good stories to write about in the coming weeks.  For me I just couldn’t believe they could still call themselves journalists when there is no sense of social responsibility with them. The lack of compassion for human lives, especially lives lost, and simply saying these are good stories to cover for sales is just beyond my comprehension as a trained communication professional. When I was at university, I took a unit of journalism and that was utterly not what I was taught. Also because of their irresponsible stories they would continue to spread unnecessary fear and hatred across the society thus undermining the works of other people who wanted to build a harmonious society. Maybe that is their agenda and maybe that is what they wanted. But then if that is the case what is the difference between them and ISIS?

There is no doubt the Sydney society is shaken to the core by this incident. We are no longer a blank canvas anymore. But what I see is the opportunity to build something good out of this. Yes the canvas is soiled but it is how we restore and continue with the painting that counts. The brushes and the colours may never cover the stains but then we can still paint something beautiful out of it if we make an attempt to do so. Every one of us is an artist of our society and it requires all of us to apply our brushes to make this society beautiful again. One of the good initiatives that came out in the last 24 hours was the “I’ll ride with you” movement that came out from a simple story. The #i’llridewithyou has become one of the biggest trends across social media and that is the kind of beauty that I want to see our society exhibits. Some media outlets or personalities see Islam as cancer cells in the Christian societies and continue to paint them black.  But for me who is more lethal and poisonous? The people with a different religion who want to be part of the society or the people who continue to condemn and stereotype other people whom they are not well informed of and have little knowledge about? The #I’llridewithyou movement is significant because it is a strong message to the society that people do care about each other disregarding their differences. It is the will power of we want to be together and support each other disregarding our differences that will continue to improve our society.

There is nothing we can do about innocent lives being lost but we can contribute to make our society better, not in a personal agenda kind of way but thinking of the society as a whole and thinking of where we want mankind to go kind of way. There is no doubt there are Islamic extremists around the world but they do not represent Islam as a religion and Muslims as its followers. It is the same for KKK does not represent Christianity and Christians. If we care about how Christians being treated in Islamic states we should also care about how Muslims are being treated in Christian countries. I hope something good would come out from this tragic event and Sydney and Australia will become stronger as one and not weaker as many.

My condolences on the innocent lives lost in this tragic event.