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‘We Are One People Under One Sun’

Garbage’s Shirley Manson touched on Sunday’s attack on Hanukkah celebrations at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, where two gunmen opened fire and killed at least 15 people. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the attack a “diabolical act of anti-Semitism”.

Garbage performed at the Sydney Opera House hours after the mass shooting tragedy that injured nearly 40 people. Authorities confirmed that one of the attackers was dead and the other was in critical condition in custody.

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“This has become an astonishingly scary, violent, hateful, intolerant world,” Manson told the crowd. “And I think the only thing we can really do as people who don’t believe in all this separation and intolerance is to really try and confess our love for each other.”

She continued, “We’ve always been a group that believes we’re all one people under the same sun. It doesn’t matter what god you worship, what the color of your skin is, what your gender or sexual orientation is, what food you like to eat, what clothes you like to wear, how you like to hang your trash, whether you like to wear bras or not. But you get my point, it’s all so stupid, people in power tell us to really hate each other and destroy one another.”

The Bondi Beach shooting occurred as more than a thousand people gathered for an event celebrating the first night of Hanukkah. Video of the incident shows two attackers starting to fire and an unarmed civilian temporarily disarming himself by wrestling one of them. (A civilian was also shot in the attack and transported to the hospital). The gunman then joined the other gunman and rearmed. The gunmen then engaged in a shootout with authorities.

Garbage also addressed the tragedy on Instagram, condemning the “horrible incident” and revealing that six family members were at Bondi Beach just hours before the shooting.

“What kind of world do we live in right now?” They released a statement on Instagram. “Innocent people were targeted while celebrating life and faith. This should never happen to anyone, anywhere. My heart goes out to the Jewish community in Bondi, the victims, the injured and the families whose lives were changed forever.”

The group added in its caption: “Our hearts go out to the victims and their surviving families who are currently dealing with unimaginable loss and heartbreak. We love you so much Sydney. Fuck all this disgusting antisemitism. Fuck Islamophobia. The killings must stop.”

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