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Australia has just endured an unprecedented winter of discontent that seems to be drifting into spring. Turmoil over immigration, the demonisation of political institutions, voter disaffection and housing and economic hardship all seem to have gathered to cast a pall over our once happy land.
But against dark and unsettling reality, we should never forget more unites us than divides us.
Belmore Medical GP Dr Jamal Rifi leading a drive-through vaccination clinic at Belmore Sport Ground in 2021.Credit: Nick Moir
We can thank two of Sydney’s pre-eminent medical leaders – Professor Les Bokey and Dr Jamal Rifi – for reminding us that common values matter and of the central role unity plays in creating community wellbeing.
Professor Bokey, our world-famous innovative cancer specialist, told guests at a gala dinner this week that Sydney’s famous south-western region was the heart of the world, a gateway to the Asia-Pacific, with people of every faith, every heart, every culture.“Our population is the petrie dish of the world,” he said. “It’s the only place in Australia where I can say in Arabic, ‘assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh’ and he can answer me in Yiddish if he wants to.”
The recently retired Bokey, who arrived in Australia from Alexandria as a refugee in the 1960s, and Dr Rifi were presented patron’s prizes at the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue’s 10th anniversary gala dinner. Bokey, an internationally renowned surgeon, was the foundation professor of surgery and clinical dean at Western Sydney University and director of surgery at Liverpool Hospital, while Rifi, a founding member of Muslim Doctors Against Violence, gained national recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic when he set up a vaccination clinic in his driveway.
Their lives and achievements personify the essence of the local hero that Robert F. Kennedy described in his famed 1966 speech in Cape Town during apartheid South Africa: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
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The same day Bokey and Rifi were honoured, the rancid attention-seeking neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell provided a glimpse of the great new Australian divide that he foments, gatecrashing a press conference held by Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan to rant about the right to protest, after making the same false claim to protesters at the weekend’s March for Australia rally and then being arrested for allegedly storming a protest camp located in Melbourne’s Kings Domain park.
We compare and contrast the bleak rabble-rouser against our medical leaders’ achievements to illustrate how a strong sense of collective identity is the antidote to those who would disconnect from society.
At a time of national and global dislocation, our two local heroes from different backgrounds have worked closely together to achieve great outcomes for all, the embodiment of the true path forwards.
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