For many years, Australians have marvelled with pride at the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge, a symbol of all that is great about this nation. John Bradfield’s extraordinary structure has come to represent, at various times, everything from Aussie ingenuity and enterprise, Aussie feats of industry and engineering, visionary planning, elegance and strength, to Ocker larrikinism, royalist fervour, fireworks, New Year’s Eve, Australia Day flotillas and of course indigenous recognition. Originally known as the ‘Iron Lung’ because of its unique role in providing much-needed jobs for starving Depression-era workers, sixteen of whom died during its decade of construction, the Bridge has become an apt metaphor for harmony, unity and shared purpose and has played a major role in Australian folklore (not to mention tourism ads) for the past century. It was the Bridge that even gave us one of our most successful creative exports, Paul Hogan, originally discovered by John Cornell, working as a fitter high on its girders. For sure, the Bridge has been used for the odd political statement, most famously at its opening ceremony when the royalist Francis de Groot rode forward sword raised high to usurp the left-wing premier Jack Lang in cutting the ribbon and then again in 2000 for the march for indigenous recognition.

Last weekend, however, for the first time in its history, our beloved ‘Coathanger’ was abused and sullied in the most vile manner to become the Shameful Harbour Bridge. Even the Almighty (or was it the Goddess of Global Warming?) seemed to pass his or her verdict on the events of last Sunday, unleashing an almost Biblical deluge of sleet, rain and freezing winds upon those so brazenly defiling the Bridge with their putrid ‘protest’: a sick corruption of  2000’s indigenous march grotesquely calling itself a ‘march for humanity’.

For several hours, up to a hundred thousand sodden individuals marched united in one thing only – hatred. The flags being flown were quite literally the flags of terrorist entities, evil dictatorial regimes and mass murderers, rapists and torturers. The excuse for this outpouring of sympathy for the devil was, of course, the false and easily debunked accusation that the Israelis are deliberately starving babies to death in Gaza. The only evidence to date of this alleged war crime has been a fraudulently captioned photo published originally in the New York Times and swiftly followed by much of the Australian media, before being exposed as a deliberate deception. But regardless, what gave the lie to the protest march and its ‘humanity’ was that by far the majority of placards, banners and slogans being chanted had nothing whatsoever to do with malnutrition or starvation or delivering aid but everything to do with hatred for Israel’s government, army, leadership and Jewish population. Also giving lie to the professed altruistic motivations of the organisers was the fact that (with only one frivolous exception) there was not a single Australian flag to be seen. Isis banners, Hamas flags, placards of the Ayatollah, ‘from the river to the sea’ and ‘intifada’ slogans and even a swastika were in abundance. Rather than being an expression of concern by mainstream Australians about the lack of access to aid in the war in Gaza, as the likes of Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pretended, this was nothing other than a public outpouring of Jew hatred and an abuse of Sydney’s famous landmark for purely Islamist propaganda purposes.

And it worked. Those who most eagerly reproduced the images were of course aligned with or sympathetic to the bloodthirsty goals of Hamas.

Several ironies leapt out from the images. Firstly, of course, was the absence of any serious political or community figures. Second was the fact that someone like Sydney Mayor Clover Moore who is supposedly the great representative of Australia’s LGBTQ community and Queen of the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was happy to pose under a photo of the Iranian Ayatollah – an evil dictator (and homophobe) who would ensure Clover was tossed off the nearest rooftop (or bridge?) if she ever attempted to bring her ideology to the streets of Tehran. Or indeed anywhere else in the Middle East other, of course, than Israel.

But most disgraceful and sickening of all was that this so-called ‘march for humanity’ chose to completely ignore the shocking and very real footage released that same morning by Hamas of Evyatar David being tortured to death in the tunnels beneath Gaza ‘digging his own grave’.

Shame on everybody who set foot on our iconic Bridge last Sunday. It will take a few more heavy deluges to wash away the stains of ignominy from that wretched day.