16 Nov How Much Is Enough…….
How Much Is Enough….????
So we witness unfortunately another bout of senseless terrorism with countless numbers of innocent people going about their daily lives butchered in Paris, on top of recent episodes in Turkey, Beirut & the downing of the Russian Passenger Jet. Watching this on TV seems like viewing another Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise disaster movie, but it does hit very close to home, given our ties with France & the Western World in general.
For my family it is even more relevant as we are traveling to Europe at Xmas time & will be in Paris and travelling through France for the bulk of January. We have as a family previously unfortunately experienced terrorism first hand, having been in Bali when the 1st bomb went off on 12th October 2002. That morning we walked as a family past the Sari Club, the site of the 1st attack & I know someone personally who left the Sari Club 15 minutes before the bombing that night.
To experience the fallout from terrorism is basically an unreal event. You don’t know which way to turn, whether you are safe, whether another bomb is going to go off. We were lucky in 2002, being part of a conference group that was sponsored by Westpac. Westpac flew in their security expert from Jakarta and made arrangements to fly us all out on the 1st available Qantas jet.
At Bali airport it was pandemonium, guards armed with machine guns & dogs. Scores of injured people waiting in vain to get a flight home. Our flight was filled up with people who had been injured in the blast as well as the lucky ones like us. At Sydney airport we were met by Federal Police who wanted to know what we had seen or heard – a funny “ha ha” side note is that when our bags were x-rayed it showed up about 4 round canisters (this happened to be the kid’s Play Doh that we had bought for them to play with at the time), that customs staff wanted us to show them.
We were offered sanctuary in Sydney for the night & counselling if we required it. I at a later date met the then CEO for Westpac Dr. David Morgan & I could not thank him enough for getting us home safe & sound and in the most expedient manner.
The outcome of the Paris bombings, well more violence. As we have seen today the French have bombed ISIS strategic sites in Syria & every European nation will be re-visiting their “most wanted” lists. One up shot is that now the Russians are talking to the Europeans/NATO/Americans about Syria in general, although for regular readers of my blogs, this isn’t such a simple issue to resolve (Check Out ISIS, What Crisis from June 2014)
I can’t imagine how the people of Paris and those who have been directly impacted from this would be feeling right now. My family & I, well we are the lucky ones. My daughter Lauren’s only memory as a 4 year old of Bali is swimming in a pool for 3 straight days. We in Australia continue to be the Lucky Country in general, but as we have seen at Police Stations in NSW & Victoria & a Martin Place coffee shop – not all of us are lucky at the same time. All I know is that we have to keep living our lives and not be frightened by these cowardly butchers.
One of my favourite Australian bands is You Am I. Their song How Much Is Enough says it all
How much is enough?
Did you ever want to get in touch with somebody you’ve hurt?
Offered up some kind of collective
Where you can never ever be left selected
Did you ever want to be a collective?
If the lights then fell
Do you think you could tell
How much?
If the lights then fell
Do you think you could tell
Just how much?