In grief and crisis, signs of hope and unity emerge

Crisis and suffering, bitter as they are, can bring unlooked-for consolation. Amid grief and loss, the bushfires called forth an outpouring of compassion and a searing reminder of what is precious, what can bring us together in this vast island continent. “We were all breathing the same smoke, watching the same screens of fire, sharing the fear,” columnist Deirdre Macken wrote. “We were back in country.” National media and a smartphone in every hand, close to every fire front, gave us a visceral, gritty sense of heroic struggles in myriad towns and forests, building up a picture of a scattered people reconnected with itself and asserting its own character. There’s a reservoir of goodwill to help scarred communities recover, and an opportunity to mobilise and unite in search of solutions for a better future.

People didn’t just put their hands in digital pockets to raise funds, vital as that is. They rallied with neighbours in the fire path, threw open their homes to strangers, performed feats of Aussie inventiveness and donated everything from scones to landclearing machinery. When something’s imperilled, its value cries out. In seaside hamlets we saw remnants of the relaxed outdoor life. Cosy old beach shacks, unchanged through generations of school holidays, were reduced to an umber skeleton, ash washing up on the shore. Our sometimes smug image of ourselves as a blessed country was reflected back by international media coverage: a paradise of ecology and recreation with fascinatingly odd wildlife was in peril. It made sense to pull the latest tourism ads, with Australia’s landscape the main character and Our Kylie part of the backdrop, but elite dismissal of them as cliches was wrongheaded. The blissful, positive stereotype has a good enough dose of reality in it, which is why a holiday Down Under is the stuff of daydreams for city dwellers overseas where the weather does not smile on them and the urban landscape is grim.

It’s true that Australia is a paradox. We have unspoilt wilderness, tropical rainforests, coral reefs, desert, treeless plains, high mountain country, endless beaches: the list goes on. Yet we are also one of the most urbanised nations and swaths of our sprawling cities are unlovely. As Jamie Walker reports today, unaffordable housing — especially in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane — has contrived to shrink the backyard, bloat the indoors and proliferate apartments. Clever design, when it’s tried, can do wonders, but the downsides are undodgeable. It’s not simply a question of less outdoor space but a cluster of interrelated habits and changes. There’s less fraternising in the public commons. Many of us have retreated indoors with food-delivery apps, net-streamed binge-watching, and family members atomised with separate devices and online tribes. It reduces the opportunity for face-to-face encounters with new people or those with whom we disagree. Anti-social media breeds a shallow aggression that undermines the thoughtful trade-offs needed to make democracy work.

It’s partly the excess of identity politics, as John Carroll explains in Inquirer, but he also sagely notes the unmet, enduring human need for meaning. The elite political values of globalisation struggle to engage the mainstream, which cherishes localism. In our magazine, Trent Dalton begins his profile of six households in a random Brisbane street. This is the level at which joy, triumph and sadness — life in all its fine-grained meaning — take shape and lodge in shared memory. It’s from this home ground that our choices and relationships can reach out, shaping a common future. In the same way, as we reflect on what the coming Australia Day means, we can draw new purpose from the bonds of connection forged in the bushfire crisis