Hi. My column for the Lismore Northern Rivers Echo this week is a collaboration with Webdiarists. It’s at smh. For an analysis of worldwide web coverage see The Internet Tells an Agonizing Tale of Remote Disasterin Online Journalism Review at ojr.
Today feelings on the tragedy from Australians at home and in Germany, England and the United States, including discussion on an appropriate national symbol for our unity in grief . Contributors are John Bennett, Andrea Hamann, Alan Banford, Brigid Delaney, Bob Howard, Peter Funnell, K. Michael Pollard, Nigel Culshaw, Redmond Lee and Darren Spain.
Merrill Pye in Sydney suggests this quote from Subaltern on the Somme, by Max Plowman, is pertinent:
“Facts are mere accessories to the truth, and we do not invite to our hearth the guest who can only remind us that on such a day we suffered calamity. Still less welcome is he who would make a Roman holiday of our misfortunes. Exaggeration of what was monstrous is quickly recognised as a sign of egotism, and that contrarious symptom of the same disease which pretends that what is accepted as monstrous was really little more than normal is equally unwelcome.”
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John Bennett
I caught you on Late Night Live last night (audio is at abc) and agreed strongly that how we think must be tempered and that writers can help. So here is a poem a few minutes old (always dangerous). It is a reply to Auden as well as to our current mess.
Bali Bombing
Sydney, 14.10.2002
Girl in intensive care, about 5 years old, 130 cm, fair skin, Caucasian with reddish brown hair. She has a purplish belly button ring. Notice board, hospital under a section Identity Unknown.
Thought ricochets from the eager news to
discount holidays to an ambulance cavalcade
wailing through dusk up Parramatta road
with Police escort. A silhouette
glimpsed through a side window reveals
a nurse, leaning forward with a drip.
The din of sirens is that song whose words
you have forgotten. Pretty clouds are being bruised
purplish over mountains by the gathering rush of night.
The clouds seem meaningless,
the drought is kicking on and angels can’t
be seen or heard over the noise of news bulletins
What exactly would you like to know,
her name? If she’s still alive? Who
planted the bomb? Who would use
a term from the gardening lexicon?
You have to listen to the stories
of those hurt and hurting
the courage and fear
signs of love pushed out
from blackened lips.
Each breath we, the audience, take of anger
is Tyrian purple squeezed from whelks,
heart songs of might and vengeance.
The moon is polished, leave it where it is
though it does eclipse and shines wan
disembodied light on blackened ground
and bodies with no weight in Bali,
an island I remember for the colours,
so many species of Raja udang –
Javan, blue-eared, rufous-backed,
stork-billed, collared and sacred
flashing down the Petanu river.
I can hear, in a pause in the traffic,
a brassy willie wagtail singing
I’m here, where are you?
***
Andrea Hamann in Frankfurt
For the first time ever in my life I scanned a list of victims, both injured and casualties, for names of people I might know. I guess I was naive to have believed that I would never be in that situation. So far there is no one I know personally on the list, but every single name rings familiar.
Stephens, Armstrong, Thompson, Acheson, Mavoudis, Andrew, Kristy, Tim, Angela. They all are the names of people we grew up with, names of people we went to school with. Australian names, names of footballers, names of old boyfriends, names of girlfriends, names of best friends and names of family. They are names which ring familiar to all Australians, just as the names of victims from Bali, Germany, France or any other nation will ring familiar to their nationals.
I cannot help but feel an emptiness and helplessness, but above all such a profound sorrow and sympathy for those who have lost loved ones.
I keep thinking of the names on black marble at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, the names on war memorials in almost every town in Australia, in France, in so many countries, the names of the victims of wars all over the world
There are new memorials to be built. This time the names will be of victims of the War on Terror.
***
Alan Bamford of Preston, Victoria
At the moment I am in Taiwan, the guest of some beautiful, generous people who play music and have offered me the opportunity of a lifetime to be part of their small vibrant scene for a little while. At their house the other day CNN was turned on and the appalling event in Bali became part of my life.
Very quickly, remembering the experience of the world Trade Centre broadcast, I asked it be turned off. I am on holiday.
Despite assiduously avoiding the TV the fact of its occurrence has eaten at me and via newspaper web sites I became informed of the extent of the suffering.
I truly feel like I am living in twin universes as I explore the extraordinarily alive and friendly city of Taipei, inspired and touched by the humour and warmth of the people I meet and their arrangements for living while at the same time aware that this thing has happened.
About the actual events and their consequences for the thousands of grief stricken people whose lives are forever tarnished I can say nothing that all Australians and all people who care about the happiness of others have not already thought and said.
My contribution is to recollect the end of a recent period of human conflict known then as the Cold War. As a father I rejoiced when the Berlin Wall fell, during the period of Perestroika, and as the warheads began to be decomissioned. No longer would children be sentenced to a life of residual fear. A permanent low level background fear, as I had grown up with, of war, of nuclear fallout, of unimaginable destruction.
As anyone knows, children need to grow up in the unspoken certainty that they are safe – safe to be alive in their own space. I am aware very well, having been a young child in a Middle Eastern country where my father worked, that enjoyment of this right is uncommon in many many places around the world.
As it became apparent that my own child would now most likely be unable to escape this consequence of the new threat, I cried for all the children who will have nightmares and all those children who will fear what they do not understand and what they believe they cannot control and what might get them one day.
I hold no particular brief for any of the contesting arguments concerning the most appropriate responses nations and international bodies might make to this intensification of a problem that has been with us for the last 40 years or so.
I write only to express my sadness that another generation of young people are destined to grow up in a world geopolitically defined by threat, fear and a sense of danger everywhere.
***
Brigid Delaney, Sydney Morning Herald journalist
For many Australians the echoes of September 11 were too great to ignore. We woke on Sunday to news of an attack on foreign soil. Australians were certainly amongst the estimated fifty dead. There was a sense of a greater reckoning ahead – that the toll would climb and stories of horror would emerge.
And they did.
The Prime Minister, John Howard spoke to a packed press conference from Canberra – his voice close to breaking he told us to brace ourselves – that “there would be many Australians among the dead”. And surely enough the toll climbed during the day and into the night, reaching 189 people missing.
Glued to our television screens we saw the same raw news footage played, then replayed. It was of a Balinese night sky turned orange, burnt out cars, white body bags lining the streets and a soundtrack of sirens. They seared in the memory as strongly as those planes surging into the twin towers and New York City covered in ash.
But amongst the breaking news, there was an air of disbelief – could this really happen to us?
For many Australians it is the familiar details of the attack that make it heart wrenching. It was the football teams, the surfers, the backpackers, the families, the beach lovers, the groups of mates all in a holiday spot so close to home, visited by so many Australians.
It was the footage of tough men in singlets and thongs weeping as they searched overcrowded hospitals for their mates.
And it was the sight of AFL players returning home. At the airport they were not the invulnerable heroes that they had been that season – but looked scared, clutching at their loved ones.
Familiar too was the footage of rural towns such as Forbes in NSW and Sturt in South Australia, where the young men of the community, many aged in their early twenties had gone to Bali together for their end of season footy trips.
Those left behind, girlfriends, parents and club presidents were left holding photos – pointing out the boys that were still missing.
Their hopes that the boys may be found alive was cruelly juxtaposed with other news images – eyewitness accounts of body parts strewn across the streets, horrific burns and a hospital system unable to cope.
But amongst the carnage there are stories of amazing heroism – of people being pulled out of the wreckage and carried up onto the roof, of expats arriving at hospitals with cloth for bandages and medical teams forming around Australia fly to Darwin and Indonesia.
In offices, pubs and homes across Australia the Bali tragedy has gripped the imagination.
There are stories of horror as survivors return home, and there will be more. A horrible question has emerged – will we ever be the same again?
***
Bob Howard in Albany, Western Australia
A year ago today I was in Phuket in Thailand. It was my first trip outside Australia and it was only because I had won a raffle (another first). I had my 13 year old son with me, and his mother had been quite worried about the potential for something to go wrong.
America was about to invade Afghanistan. I reassured her that it was a buddhist country and unlikely to be involved. I said that the threat would be much greater in a year’s time.
I wasn’t surprised on Sunday, but I was saddened by the naivety of much of the commentary about the war on terrorism. The ‘bleeding heart are fools’ commentary by Gerard Henderson (smh) is stupid and foolish in its lack of understanding about the realpolitik of the 21st Century. To me he is the bleeding heart locked in a hopeless romantic nostalgia for an America that never was except in its movies.
On Monday I listened to Liam Bartlett on WA ABC morning radio to hear the talkback and interviews. Liam is a typical talk back host, at times abrasive, but Liam is also dedicated and conscientious and had broadcast live on Sunday. He started his program at 8.30 am with a 20 minute live interview with the coach of the Kingsley football club that left me in tears. During talkback he gave short shrift to a couple of naive left wing apologists, but what was surprising was that the majority of his more reasonable callers were scathing about the Howard government’s policies.
When the more rabid right wingers got their say they sounded cliched and stupid in comparison. The most interesting call was from an indigenous land owner from the the Pilbara who had recently obtained native title to his land – he spoke passionately from a Christian point of view, preaching peace with our enemies in such coherent and persuasive fashion that Liam could only respond with an “Amen” and thank you.
Politically, John Howard would be acting extremely ‘courageously’ if he were to commit our troops to a war against Iraq at the moment. It is notable that the letters column in the West Australian is dominated by people joining up the dots like Liam’s callers.
On the other hand, I must say that the Government’s response has been markedly different from the response of the US government to Sept 11, and I think the cooperative approach between Oz and Indonesia is likely to lead to a quicker results in bringing the perpetrators to justice.
Many people have said that Bali will never recover, but I think this represents a tragic opportunity to repair bridges with Indonesia. The antipathy created by Timor has been washed away by this atrocity. Our biggest moral obligation in the next 12 months, after we have buried our own dead, will be to the people of Bali to assist them to recover.
As a nation we have extracted a lot of happiness and good times from this island and we must ensure that we don’t desert them now.
When in Thailand, except for the war on Afghanistan the biggest news story was a barter deal between Thailand and South Africa exchanging beef for rice worth many millions of dollars. America gives the impression that it is the centre of the world and that its currency is (through the IMF) is the vital blood that keeps the world going.
It’s not true. Soft headed tragic nostalgics like Gerard Henderson and his ilk are doing the country a great disservice by their misguided macho posturing.
***
Peter Funnell in Farrer, Canberra
I don’t think I know anyone killed or injured in the Bali explosion. Well, not yet anyway. But I feel a strong bond to these my fellow Australians. That is the horror of it.
The statistics we crave to hear in order to quantify, to give spatial dimension to the story, mark the horror of it. So many dead, so many dead and identified, so many injured and identified, so many dead and injured and not identified, and finally so, many, many missing. The numbers don’t add up like some simple maths problem. The horror of it! If those missing are not located in Bali or in Australia, waiting or having just got a flight out of the place, only one possibility is left. They are dead and never coming home.
I can’t imagine how it feels not to know where my wife or our son might be. I don’t know how I would manage if it had been my son or wife that were missing. As I hear the latest statistics I find I can’t sit still in the chair. I listen to the families speaking of their fears and the tears well up in my eyes and I wonder at their courage. How do they bear it? As one said – “What choice do we have, you can’t give up”. No you can’t!
Right out of the blue and in a rush my father’s experiences as a prisoner of war of the Japanese return. I recall he was reported “missing”. My mother refused to believe it – for years. She was right. The depth of her anguish suddenly hit home and I finally understood the depth of feeling and commitment that characterised their lives together.
I’m not sure this note is making sense. But I found myself returning to my father, the only point of reference I have for this Bali slaughter and the world of the “missing”. He was firmly against war, not a ounce of retribution in him. He thought every day was a “bonus”. Mum was different, she hated what his “missing” had done to her.
I hope the “missing” are found as quickly as possible, because without closure, their loved ones will not even able to grieve properly. Hope it seems is not an external well spring but an instrument of torture. The horror of it! The best I can say is that all these people can rely on the deepest feelings of support and compassion from every ordinary Australian. I know it’s not enough, never will be, but it’s good.
I never cease to be amazed at how well our citizens perform in adversity. The stories are already coming out about how Australians banded together for no other purpose than to help others. So many rallied to the call for help, did it instinctively. Our consular officials and ADF personnel have been magnificent. Why does it take this to make it so obvious that nothing is more important than our people?
I truly hope the injured and the families of the diseased will not be forgotten. Our nation’s generosity and concern should not pass with time and other issues. Life will certainly go on, but we are all diminished by this dreadful business. Taking lots of other lives will not change that one little bit. Time to pause and reflect on the value of a human life, of relationships and friendships. Without it we don’t have much at all.
***
NATIONAL SYMBOL
K Michael Pollard in San Diego, CA, USA
Darren Spain in London wrote in Searching for hope:
“Let’s not rally around an overtly Australian symbol as the Americans did when they flew the flag everywhere and on everything as a sign of solidarity with relatives and friends of the victims. To do so will deny non-Australians their need to share their grief, empathise with us and feel empathy in return.
“… As I walked around Manhattan and my old neighbourhood in Brooklyn I should have been feeling empathy but instead I felt anger every time I saw a US flag. It was like I was being told that as a non-American my grief was of lesser importance.”
As an Australian living in the US for over 15 years I felt insulted. The attacks of Sept 11 have galvanized this country and its populace in a way that seems to have been lost on Mr Spain, and its not solely focused on revenge as seems to be the view of many outside the country.
Yes citizens from many countries, including Australia, died, and yes they should be mourned not only because of the senseless act of violence that took their lives but because they are citizens of the world. Americans have appreciated this (from my perspective far more than Mr Spain has) but at the same time a great hole was cut into the fabric of this country and it remains. as the bare earth in New York still testifies.
How would Mr Spain have the country heal such a wound? He suggests a symbol that unites, nothing more, nothing that the grieving can grasp for support. Americans knew what to do, they flew their flag. How else do you stand up and say “Here I am, I’m proud to live in a country you despise and wish to destroy”. As an Australian I went out and bought an Australian flag and flew that. This past Sept 11 we flew both the Australian and US flags side by side. No one complained that the Aussie flag flew. Americans understood the grief was not all their’s, but simply by sheer weight of numbers of grieving their’s was overwhelming.
Nigel Culshaw in London
I am grieved by the horror which struck such a peaceful part of the world in Bali, until I have discovered all the names of those missing or dead I am unsure whether I have lost anyone I know.
Instead of Margo’s suggestion of using Uluru – an Australian icon – as a symbol, why not use a symbol which drew people to Bali initially? The beach, symbols of paradise and another world which did not know (nor care to know) the ugly culture that infects the world in the form of terrorism.
People travel to Bali to escape, so why not use something Balinese as the symbol which will unite all the Nations involved in this tragedy…that which brought them to Bali in the first place.
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Redmond Lee in London
In the midst of this undeniable tragedy for the nation, could I please ask those people such as Darren Spain to refrain from pushing their flag changing agenda? Warts and all, this is our flag, for better or for worse. There are proper and decent times for these debates. There are appropriate channels and organisations to join in order to effect a change – until then, our flag is the national symbol of our country. If you don’t like it, then don’t mention it.
Mr Spain’s call for the victims of other nations to be recognised is one which means well. However it is hard for a nation who has suffered the bulk of the loss of innocent life, appears to have been the prime target of terrorist action and lots of whose sons and daughters were engaging in an activity which is archetypically Australian (end of season trips), not to feel the bulk of the outrage.
Let us grieve, and if we choose our nation’s flag as a rallying symbol, let us do so.
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Darren Spain in London
In addition to my three pleas published yesterday, I have one more request of Australians. It is motivated by an event I remember reading about in the days following the 11 September 2001 attacks.
The story I remember is of a Muslim family in the New York City borough of Queens. For several days following the destruction of the World Trade Center they were too scared to leave their house. They feared hostility and reprisals. When the husband of the family did finally open the door to the house he was prevented from leaving it, not by someone with a gun, but by the fact that all the steps leading up to his front door were covered with flowers, baked goods and cards from neighbours stating that they did not blame them for what had happened.
One card didn’t pretend to know the family concerned, it simply stated something like “To our neighbour. At this time we want you to know that we are there for you and it is our sincere prayer that you are not subject to any unpleasantness.” Seeing him standing in the doorway, one of his neighbours who happened to be outside at the time walked over to greet him and found him and his wife (who he had called to the door) in tears.
Considering that Arabic is the second most spoken language in Sydney, it’s highly likely that Sydneysiders will know someone of the Muslim faith. He or she may be a neighbour or a co-worker or a fellow student. If none of these apply to you then there is a good chance that in coming days and weeks you will encounter a Muslim as you go about your daily routine who is a total stranger.
Please tell them that you do not blame them for what has happened in Bali. If some idiots take it upon themselves to attack Mosques or businesses belonging to Muslims or if people of the Muslim faith come under personal attack in coming days you may even choose to apologise for “everything that has been going on lately”. It will be an unexpected relief for them and you will both feel the better for it.