Sydney Siege and Loss of Innocence by John Tognolini

In the tragic aftermath of the Sydney Siege in the Lindt Café. Our prime minister Tony Abbott, has called it “our brush with terrorism.” It was not terrorism but a criminal act by a lone gunman suffering from mental illness with a history of violence against women. Some in the media have compared it to the 9/11 attacks and the London Bombings, a few have called it Sydney’s loss of innocence.

With all due respect to the victims of siege at the Lindt Café, Sydney lost its innocence back in 1788 when the first boat people arrived in chains and British Crown raised its flag and took the ancestral lands of the Indigenous Peoples under the lie of Terra Nullius. It says a fair bit about Aboriginal People that amongst the moving floral tribute from thousands of people in Martin Place to Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson who were killed by Man Haron Monis, that a smoking ceremony took place to cleanse the area of bad spirits