RAA LIAISON LETTER 2025 – 2026 EDITION CANNONBALL SUPPLEMENT 110 The Australian - Nation Commentary Greg Sheridan Foreign Editor 28 April 2026 IN AN AGE OF NARCISSISM AND VIOLENCE WE NEED TRUE PHYSICAL COURAGE MORE THAN EVER “Those who abjure violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.” George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism, 1945 In the scene at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, when a gunman fired shots in the foyer on the floor above the event, one figure stuck out to me. One Secret Service agent leapt to the front of the stage, directly in front of where Donald Trump was sitting. He was a big fellow and in those seconds he had just one job – to take a bullet fired at Trump. He had a protective vest. But his actions required incredible personal courage. Presidential bodyguards have been shot before, shielding presidents. The Secret Service agent’s action underscores a feature we seldom speak of, and that is the central role and necessity of physical courage in the face of violence for our society to function at all, and for peaceful citizens to continue to enjoy peace. This Anzac Day, we remembered and celebrated that physical courage of tens of thousands of young Australians sent to war. I was surprised and delighted at my Catholic parish last Sunday that the Ode of Remembrance was recited, with its haunting tribute to young lives sacrificed: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.” The congregation sang the national anthem as pictures were projected of Diggers going over a ridge and of a navy warship. This occurred after mass so didn’t interfere with any liturgical rite. It was a marvellous recognition of the debt we owe to the courage of soldiers. Importantly, it signified, too, Christian acceptance of the moral virtue of the profession of arms, its necessity and its heroism. Like the Americans, we exhibit confused paradox in our attitude to violence and courage. Some neighbourhoods are saturated in crime violence. There is something like an epidemic of domestic violence. We don’t have so many guns as the US, but there’s an undercurrent of political intolerance and borderline violence, especially directed by demonstrators against the police. More so even than soldiers, our police are required every day to live out personal, physical courage. Every time a police officer visits a scene of domestic dispute, for example, they run the risk of confronting a violent person, high on ice or something else, armed with a gun or a knife. But if the police don’t go through the front door, the victim has no hope at all. Courage is essential in many walks of life. Doctors and nurses display courage by exposing themselves to infectious diseases. Firefighters too. Sometimes society needs soldiers or police or even just good citizens in terrible circumstances to lawfully confront violence with violence. The narcissism of contemporary politics is a social disorder, a mental affliction, which we suffer greatly just now. It’s the absurd selfindulgence of any of us thinking our particular political views and causes are of such transcendent importance that they justify violence outside the law. This has for many decades been a conscious tactic of the left in Western societies. Thus there are endless calls for “direct action” from campaigners allegedly trying to help the environment, particular racial groups, various gender and sexual preference identities and much else. The direct action call is both corrupt and corrupting. It’s an assertion that I don’t need to abide by the rules that should bind other people. It’s most often directed at police. This has theoretical support among many elements even of mainstream left opinion. For the use of force to be morally justified, the circumstances must be immediately causing great risk and the force must be authorised by law and morality. It’s the tremendous arrogance of individuals, or demonstrators demanding direct action, that believes they don’t have to abide by the rules because their cause is so transcendently important. Thus the alleged shooter at the White House press corps dinner, wrote in an almost sickly banal manifesto: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” This involves a wild mischaracterisation of alleged crimes by the Trump administration and a supreme arrogance in deciding an individual’s own political judgment is adequate to justify mass murder, as was apparently intended. Right-wing violence is also growing. Both sides of politics are guilty. These trends culminate in suicide terrorists. Suicide is not the same as heroic indifference to danger. Intentional suicide for political ends comes from a hatred of life. Heroic actions indifferent to danger emerge from the deepest love of life. Christianity is theologically unique in positing personal physical courage – Christ enduring crucifixion – as manifest in God himself. Anzac Day aside, we too often spurn traditional heroes and courageous warriors. Yet, in our ignorance and confusion, we need them more than ever.
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