Mass shooting, bombs, stabbings.

I've become so used to death and destruction that I am, sadly, desensitised. 

Incidents which once would have incited horror are now more of a fixture on the news bulletin, a number on the tally, the result of a toxic cycle to which I have become resigned. 

The rhetoric around the war on terror seems to be growing increasingly hysterical, as society becomes more and more divided.

It is blatantly clear that discrimination towards Muslims is generating at least some of the hatred behind radicalisation and terrorism. 

Division fuels hostility.

Imagine you were born in a country and English wasn't your first language. 

It's the mid 2000s, you go to primary school and paranoia is becoming pervasive. 

You may feel isolated, bigots in the street make comments about your dress or your customs, needless insults causing conflict.

You grow up feeling alienated and marginalised.

You've been levelled aggression in public through insults.

Insidious, inescapable hints you're not wanted, like those charming bumper stickers with expletive-laden declarations along the lines of 'love it or leave it' are abundant. 

You seek solace online, and find what you think is a realistic portrayal of a brotherhood abroad, where people who share your religion are fighting the people who have ostracised you. 

The Islamic State's propaganda is carefully constructed and targeted at impressionable young people disenchanted with the Western world. 

The people who radicalise these youths are clearly completely evil.

But the people they are targeting are often barely adolescents, and some have been subjected to shocking stigmatisation and discrimination. 

Imagine if a politician who recently became a parliamentary powerbroker insistently pushed for a Royal Commision into your religion, spruiking suspicions to their followers that it was an ideology.

They're also trying to ban building your place of worship.

That is the reality for Muslims in Australia, with the rise of Pauline Hanson and an increasingly loud barrage of anti-Islam rhetoric. 

Creating hysteria and fear, like xenophobes do, is giving radical extremists exactly what they want. 

Declaring we should ban Muslim immigration simply exacerbates anger on both sides, creates division and the impression that Australians believe all Muslims are terrorists.

In fact, most are absolutely appalled by the extremist members of their religion.

Much like I’m appalled by the xenophobic bigots who don’t understand they are perpetuating the exact cycle they think they are trying to prevent. 

The people on the ground with ISIS abroad are deceptive and deplorable, but Australians need to acknowledge that contributing to an anti-Islam conversation is ignorant and potentially provocative.

There are serious divisions in our country which now pervade the political landscape, fuel paranoia and have created an unnecessarily, omnipresent sense of fear. 

National security is a government priority, and will be strictly monitored. 

Compassion and consideration are far more effective than hysteria and generalisations in this ideological conflict.