Australia’s new hate speech laws are landing in a climate of deep mistrust and unequal public empathy. When grief, protest and solidarity are treated as threats, social cohesion becomes a hollow promise, Sawsan Madina writes.

Over the past two years, a disturbing hierarchy has become painfully clear. We, Arab Australians, have learnt that not all lives are equal, not all pain is equal and not all grief is equal. We have learnt that the hurt feelings of certain others are much more important than the gash in our hearts. We have learnt that we should not voice our pain. We have learnt that our peaceful protests against the horrors Israel is visiting on the Palestinians offend certain others. We have learnt that empathy and solidarity with some victims of extreme violence are, to certain others, dangerous acts of hate. And now we learn that we must suppress our pain and keep silent about unspeakable crimes lest we be thrown in jail.

Over the past two years, we have learnt to invert every statement by a politician or a mainstream journalist, searching in vain for even-handedness and equal treatment. Sadly, all we found was consistent double standards and blatant hypocrisy.

Could you imagine our politicians granting us the role of monitoring the ABC for anti-Palestinian bias? Could you imagine the Nakba being taught in our schools?

When we voice our pain, politicians say overseas events must not be brought here. But when overseas events distress certain others, they voice their pain freely and politicians fall over each other to comfort them. I have watched our politicians ignore our trauma over the slaughter of tens of thousands and the systematic attempts to erase a people, and I have learnt that our victims are the wrong type of victim. And now we are told that displays of our anguish are offensive, and are to be taken off the streets and confined to the privacy of our homes. The latter, for the time being.

Politicians say our chants and images incite violence. So our calls for freedom must be silenced and our placards with pictures of frozen babies in tattered tents must be put away. They cause discomfort and hurt to certain members of the community. What about our hurt over the occupation and the frozen babies? What about the feelings of those caged and abused under the occupation? What about the agony of the mothers whose babies froze to death? On this the politicians are silent.

Students of history know that repression never leads to security and selective compassion never leads to a cohesive society. People are not stupid. They know when a politician dares not speak of the huge elephant in the room. They know when a politician waffles on in response to a simple, straightforward question. They know when a politician replies ‘‘I won’t get into hypotheticals…" to a question which is anything but hypothetical. They know when a discussion begs a question and the journalist lets the question go unasked.

People know. And they weep and they seethe in silence.

Until they stop treating the various sections of the Australian community differently, and as long as empathy and sympathy continue to be doled out selectively, our political leaders have no right to spout platitudes about unity and social cohesion. Already, these words, once significant, are being hollowed out.

I will end with Jepke Goudsmit’s hauntingly beautiful Lament. Her words are balsam on an open wound.