According to this paper, the surge of performative hatred on Australia's streets and university campuses is the predictable harvest of a long-term civic vacuum. It posits that by dismantling the historical narrative of common citizenship, educational structures have left young Australians textually and philosophically unequipped to resist sectarian intimidation.

This paper treats civics as an active, cultural and philosophical enterprise: the deliberate cultivation of a shared national identity and a common bond of membership that transcends individual differences. The role of civics encompasses the entire institutional apparatus through which a liberal democracy inducts its young into this shared inheritance. 

The paper offers a set of recommendations to correct the problem. It argues for a mandated national civics curriculum, the re-ritualising of the school week, and renewed engagement across school sectors that have become sealed off from one another. 

Key points

• Public antisemitism has moved from private prejudice to open harassment, intimidation, and exclusion in schools, universities, workplaces, and public spaces.
• Civic decline and identity-based education have fuelled the rise of antisemitism in Australia.
• Antisemitism grows when Australians stop seeing each other first as equal citizens with shared civic obligations.
• Rebuilding civic knowledge and a common national identity strengthens resistance to antisemitism and social division.