October 06, 2003
BALI
Jake Ryan recalls the moment Bali exploded:
I actually took a girl home the night before and I thought that her boyfriend must have found me. That was my first thought: ‘this bloke’s just whacked me’. I was down on the ground and thinking ‘jeez, he’s hit me a beauty’, and then I could feel people standing on me and I thought this guy was kicking me.
Jake’s story -- the rest of it is harrowing -- is part of The Age’s deeply researched and heartbreaking Bali memorial, published today. For a blog perspective on the events of a year ago, here’s my archive, beginning with the first reports of the attack. Scroll up from there. And this is the first opinion piece I wrote following October 12.
Posted by Tim Blair at October 6, 2003 02:25 PMHi Tim-- just wanted you to know that I posted a link to The Age's Bali memorial page over at Little Green Footballs-- crediting your blog too, of course.
Please know your friends in the US and Canada have not forgotten Bali!
Posted by: Connecticut Yankee at October 6, 2003 at 02:58 PMHe TOOK A GIRL HOME???!!! As well as drinking alcohol??!!! There you go. Broinowski and bin-Laden are right -- these immoral Westerners deserve to be bombed.
He probably even cooked bacon with eggs for her the next morning, compounding his offence.
Posted by: Uncle Milk at October 6, 2003 at 03:09 PMFor me the whole event is still a little dream-like - "this just cannot happen to us" keeps running through my head. Then I read the stories of the survivors and see the pictures in the paper of the dead. This is real alright, this has happened.
The ringleaders of the bombing have now been sentenced to death but there is so much as a community and a nation to still do.
We must show to ourselves and the international community that we have not been bowed and will not be beaten. It would be an insult to the memories of the dead to do any less.
can i just say that the transfinitum.net archive thing is sooo much more user-friendly than trying to find something on blogspot.
Posted by: adam at October 6, 2003 at 04:45 PMFollowed the links in this post. Am very glad to see the rememberances of this day in stories and pictures. My thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost loved ones.
The reason I'm glad for the stories and pictures is because we have to remind people that we are in a war for the survival of our way of life. This isn't a war we have asked for. It's one that was declared by fanatics who detest our way of life and want to destroy it.
The people in the US who are aware of this war have not forgotten the ones that were lost because of the fanatics on Bali. We remember and grieve with you. We also determine to hunt down and kill the terrorist cells so we don't see things like this again.
It's so frustrating that we don't have the help of our own media. The media in the US, and other Western countries, is undermining what we're trying to do in Iraq and the wider war on terror. They refuse to see we have fanatics, spread in many parts of the globe, that want to destroy our way of life.
We have to remember Bali and 9/11 just like we remember other battles in other wars. We're (the Western non-islamic nations) in a war. Unfortunately, it's only the other side that realizes that it *is* all out war.
Posted by: Chris Josephson at October 6, 2003 at 07:17 PMUncle Milk, what r you talking about?! How can you say that someone deserve a right to be bombed. Not the whole city, town, nation! Are you crazy at all? It's because of such people as you we have wars and conflicts in our world!
Posted by: Michael at October 6, 2003 at 11:03 PMMichael and Lucy-
Uncle Milk is being sarcastic.
Posted by: John Davies at October 6, 2003 at 11:17 PMummm... I believe that Uncle was using something called sarcasm.
At least, I hope he was.
Posted by: bird woman at October 6, 2003 at 11:18 PMAfter 11 September 2001, I though I understood what this was for the Americans, and I did, near enough. But near enough is not quite a bullseye.
At the service in Sydney afterwards, it really got to me. I don't know quite why. Maybe it made a difference just that everyone had ordinary Australian accents. That little girl crying because she would never see her mother again - I have no words for it.
We have no right to forget this. Howard was right. Getting the bastards is a solemn duty.
My thanks to all Americans, Brits and all others helping us or just morally supporting us do what has to be done.
I am very glad we supported the Americans all-out after 11 September, 2001 for many reasons, including this: imagine if we had had to go to the Americans after Bali and say "we didn't stand by you at all, but now will you please help us?" That would have been the lowest level of shame. And it's exactly where anti-American idiots would have put us.
Fortunately, the countries in Our Gang have stood solidly by each other, in general, so at least that much of the world is right.
Posted by: David Blue at October 7, 2003 at 04:00 AMRe Jake & beer money -- it has been consumed! I was talking to him yesterday, as it happens.
Posted by: tim at October 7, 2003 at 08:59 AMMichael, Lucy, John, Gaz, birdwoman ... Yes, I was being sarcastic.
That's why I used bolds, capitals, and repeated question marks with exclamation marks.
Like drinking [too much] alcohol, or eating [too much] bacon, one-night stands can have negative effects (I copped a few myself when younger) -- but they in no way justify, warrant or deserve terrorist attacks.
Happier?
Posted by: Uncle Milk at October 7, 2003 at 02:20 PM