|
The Herald Sun
"Bali has Bombed"
Last October 11, 2006, "The Herald
Sun", Australia’s biggest-selling
daily newspaper, published a much commented
column with the above mentioned title: "Bali
has bombed". It was written by Andrew
Bolt. Through our "Johan Hensen Column",
this magazine also paid attention to the
current situation in Bali regarding the
negative effects of foreign travel warnings.
(See www.bali-travelnews.com. Edition 22,
Johan Hensen Column: Open Letter to western
governments).Because of this coincidence,
we would like to give you also the opportunity
to read this article and send us your comments.
I would never have guessed Australians could
be easily scared but Bali is the sad proof.
"Where are the Australians?" I
was asked again and again during my family’s
holiday this month on that beautiful island.
Where indeed?
At breakfast in our hotel I’d line
up for an omelette alongside Japanese, Italian,
Korean and French tourists. But no Australians,
except one family from Melbourne at the
end of our first week.Yes, I know other
Australians still dare visit Bali—12,000
in July—but most seem to stay bunkered,
out of sight in places no bomber might reach.
They sure weren’t in the empty restaurant
in Kuta we went to for dinner, or with their
children at the unfortunately named Water-bom
Park, or in the art gallery we visited that
had so few tourists the only pay staff got
that day was lunch.
Nigel Mason, an Australian who runs the
superb elephant park at Taro, said he wasn’t
seeing many countrymen these days, either.
There were more Russians now, but that wasn’t
such a great consolation, given they tended
to tear his wife’s orchids from the
trees and climb over his statues.
Same story outside the three-star Bali Dynasty,
once a favourite of Australians. Our regular
driver in Bali, Ketut Karba, a father of
three, maintains a taxi spot there and is
down to one fare a week, if that. Of course,
you’ll say this is all quite natural
and I’m foul to even hint that we’re
cowards. Have I forgotten that 88 Australians
were murdered in Bali by Islamic terrorists
in 2002? Have I forgotten that within two
years we were flocking back to the island
in even greater numbers?
So who can blame us if we finally got the
message from last year’s bombings—in
which four Australians were among the 23
dead—that Bali was still a target
of terrorists, and not so lovely that it
was worth dying for? But, no, I haven’t
forgotten any of that. My wife and I worried,
too, especially about taking our children
to a place that is still not safe.
So we paid extra this time to stay in resorts
with armed police and guards at every entrance,
who inspect all cars for bombs. One Nusa
Dua hotel even has a metal detector and
bag searchers to check every guest. We also
took comfort in hearing Bali had hired another
1000 police and dramatically beefed up the
slack security at its airport. Those frisks
felt good.
Yet, no matter what Bali does to reassure
us, the figures show Australians have been
more spooked off visiting than have been
the tourists of any other country. Consider:
Bali in July attracted only 122,000 foreign
tourists, or 36,000 fewer than a year earlier—a
disaster when half its economy depends on
tourism. How the Islamist terrorists must
laugh at the damage their bombs did to this
Hindu enclave in Muslim Indonesia. But look
more closely at these figures and see which
foreigners the terrorists scared away best.
Tourists from every country other than ours
were down by just 6.5 per cent. But tourists
from Australia were down by an astonishing
57 per cent. Figures from other months tell
much the same story: other foreigners are
merely nervous about visiting Bali; we’re
hyperventilating.
All right, maybe we’ve learned harder
than most that Bali can explode. Maybe we
know better that a cheap hotel deal is no
consolation if your kids get blown up. BUT
Australians weren’t the only people
to die in those bombings. British tourists
were killed, too. And German, American,
Dutch, French, Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean
and others besides—and there were
the many Balinese who died with them.
Yet few tourists from those other countries
seem to quite share our fear of Bali. And
I wonder if Bali is in part paying a price
for Australian politics and ignorance. Politics?
Recall the mauling the Howard Government
got from Labor and the usual gotcha crowd
after the first bombing on the trumped-up
charge that it had failed to warn us Bali
was dangerous?
It won’t give its enemies another
free kick like that, and is now frantically
issuing warnings that make a poolside snooze
in Bali seem as life-threatening as a drive
through a terrorist-run Palestinian refugee
camp. Bali is now listed by the Department
of Foreign Affairs alongside the Gaza Strip,
Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Liberia, Haiti, East
Timor, Colombia and Pakistan as destinations
so dangerous that "we advise you to
reconsider your need to travel".
Bali as dangerous as Gaza, now in the hands
of Hamas? As East Timor, with our soldiers
still keeping the peace? Some bureaucrats
and politicians with backsides to cover
are kidding us. No wonder the Bali Tourism
Board pleaded with the Government a fortnight
ago to tone down its "ongoing frenzy"
of tourist-terrifying travel warnings.
Nor has it helped that Bali has inevitably
become a central symbol in the Howard Government’s
war propaganda—the bleeding proof
that we cannot opt out of the fight against
Islamist terror.
This has meant, for one, that the Bali bombings
were interpreted as attacks aimed specifically
and only on Australians, making us feel
more of a target than any other Westerner.
And hardly a week goes by without another
Bali-as-Baghdad reminder. A couple of weeks
ago there were the ceremonies to honour
the dead of last year’s attack. On
Saturday, it was Channel 10’s harrowing
documentary on the 2002 bombings. Now comes
the publicity for Martin Chulov’s
Australian Jihad, a book covering both attacks
in intriguing detail.
Who wouldn’t be frightened after all
that? But maybe we’re also unusually
spooked by Bali because we just haven’t
yet figured the world is so much bigger
than Australia—and terrorists don’t
just operate in lands run by brown people.
Terrorists are trying to kill many more
people than just Australians, and to kill
them in places we still imagine are far
safer than Bali. Travelling to London? Think
of the two suicide bomb attacks on the London
Underground last year, or the alleged bomb
plot against several jets that was foiled
just last August.
Want to see the pyramids in Egypt? Don’t
forget tourists there were attacked by suicide
bombers last April. Turkey? More bomb attacks
there, too, I’m afraid. Spain isn’t
safe from terrorism either, says DFAT’s
travel advice, and even the United States
has a Code Orange on all incoming flights,
indicating a "high" risk of terrorist
attack. But don’t think I’m
telling you to damn it all and go to Bali.
God forbid I should urge you go and then
hear . . . well, you know. Another bombing
can’t be ruled out.
I ‘M just saying that travel almost
anywhere and you now run a risk, as do travelers
from most places. You could get blown up
in Bali—or Barcelona. The latest Australian
traveler to be killed was shot in a bar
in Thailand. And I’m also saying our
refusal to travel to some places has consequences.
For Bali—such a pretty island with
such hospitable people—the consequences
of our collective choice are very hard indeed.
In fact, we’re now crippling the place
with our fears in just the way the terrorists
must have hoped. And I hate to do a terrorist’s
work for him. Don’t you?
Have Your Say and e-mail Your Comments to:
batrav@indo.net.id. In our next edition
we will commend on this issue, together
with the input from you. We thank you in
advance for your much appreciated support.
|
