Save Us from Nightmares – Mark Bowling

As the sun was rising, I felt a gentle breeze blowing in from the sea. From a hilltop high over Jimbaran Bay, I watched the first light pour across the rooftops of tourist hotels and resort pavilions that dot the shoreline all the way to Kuta Beach and beyond. Surely this is paradise, I considered. Or at least it once was.

I walked through a cave-like entrance into a huge amphitheatre carved out of the limestone hillside. The sheer rock walls seemed to reach up to the sky. It was still half-light inside. Swallows twittered high up amongst clumps of bougainvillea hanging down in purple explosions from the top of the cliffs. This was a peaceful place – a Hindu temple carved out of the rock face. Soon, busloads of mourners would arrive to commemorate the Bali nightclub bombings exactly one year earlier.

I walked across a manicured lawn to the rear of the amphitheatre where media crews were busy unrolling leads and connecting equipment as they prepared for live TV and radio broadcasts of the ceremony. I helped set up a satellite telephone, adjusting a small dish so it would pick up the strongest signal and then hurriedly scribbled notes as I readied myself for an ABC radio broadcast that would be carried live across Australia.

I stopped work to watch as families and friends of bomb victims started arriving. They were mainly Westerners, but also Indonesians. They were ushered to seats on the lawn by young Balinese women beautifully attired in traditional blouse (kebaya) and long, hanging sarongs known as kamen. I recognised the faces of some of the bomb survivors amongst the gathering crowd – some had become celebrities on Australian TV current affairs shows, as they told and retold stories of their ordeal. Some hobbled to their seats, bearing scars of the bombings, some were still bandaged, one sobbed uncontrollably. I noticed Indonesian police sharpshooters crouched on the cliff tops, underlining the fear that there might be a further attack by Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the shadowy group held responsible for the bombings, part of a terror network linked to al-Qaeda.

The crowd hushed as an Australian navy chaplain moved forward to lead the commemoration, standing before a giant statue of Vishnu, the Hindu god who is the protector. The service began with the Indonesian and Australian national anthems. Then 22 candles were lit at a small ‘pool of remembrance’ to symbolise the number of countries whose citizens had died in the Bali bombings. The death toll reached 202. Australia suffered the worst amongst the foreigners, with 88 fatalities.

By now, the tropical sun was beating down on the hilltop. Indonesia’s powerful Security Minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono stepped solemnly to the podium. At a time of crisis, this former general exuded the strength and conviction of a true statesman (it was no surprise that within a year he had been voted in as Indonesia’s next president). Yudhoyono’s speech moved mourners to tears as he spoke about so many lives ripped to pieces by the senseless tragedy:

“They were our sons, our daughters, our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, our cousins, our best friends, our soulmates,” he said. “And they were all innocents. They all had happy plans to spend ‘tomorrow’ under the sun. They all had families to write and come home to.”

Then Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a warning to terrorists: “These diabolical men and their friends of evil simply have no place in our society. They belong to our darkest dungeon, locked away deep beneath our children’s playground. History will condemn them forever.”

There was spontaneous applause as Yudhoyono finished speaking. His words stirred deep passions, but also reminded me that in these tough times, few politicians use speeches to deliver dreams. Instead, they promise to save us from nightmares.

The commemoration continued as the names of the Bali dead were read aloud, slowly, one by one. It took 15 minutes – enough time to reinforce the magnitude of this tragedy. It was Australia’s worst peacetime disaster – an act as senseless as the al-Qaeda hijack attacks of September 11, 2001, and as senseless as all the attacks on innocents regularly slaughtered by suicide bombers in Israel, Iraq and elsewhere. 

At the end of the ceremony, families and friends wept and embraced each other as they dropped frangipani flowers into the pool of remembrance as a sign of hope and new beginning. Guitarist John Williamson moved to the stage and played Waltzing Matilda, Australia’s unofficial anthem. It stopped many of the mourners in their tracks. It was soothing to hear a familiar nasal voice, and feel a shot of patriotic pride as every line was delivered. I felt for the mourners who tried to sing along with tears in their eyes, but couldn’t because they were overcome by grief. I felt a cold shiver, and the same deep anguish that comes with losing a loved one.

As the mourners slowly filed from the amphitheatre, they passed a wall adorned with photos of their loved ones; air-brushed wedding photos of young couples, alongside carefree holiday snaps of Australian boys and girls in singlets and sarongs probably taken in the days leading up to the blasts.

I recognised the forlorn figure of Danny Hanley, an Australian who had delivered one of the eulogies during the memorial service. He was looking for the photos of his two daughters, Renae Anderson and Simone Hanley, both killed in the bombings. I marvelled at his bravery, wondering how he could possibly muster the courage to face coming to Bali at this time. 

“I’ll never come back here again but I had to this time and rid the demons,” he told me later, his voice quivering. “It’s so important – it’s for all of us, you know, to come back here this time, for this memorial service will help a lot of family members and I know that it will help me.”

*
After a day commemorating the victims of the Bali bombings, I stood in silence, in the dark on the vacant lot where the Sari Club once stood. It was 11.08 pm, exactly a year after the largest of the Bali bombs exploded. Australian survivors, families of victims, and friends hugged and supported each other as they paid their respects. Many lit candles, standing silently together in small groups on the spot where it was believed their loved ones were at the time of the blast. Others lit a fire, stoking it with splinters of timber from amongst the rubble. They stared into the flames, drinking beer and offering toasts to departed comrades.

“Hey, mate, I know you’re listening. I miss you!” one of the drinkers lamented, opening another bottle. It was a cry of anguish to the world beyond.

I watched, in the flickering light, trying to maintain my composure – my journalistic eye. I had a deadline. I needed to record interviews and write a radio story before the dawn. But I was haunted by the young man’s cry. It was like the sad cries I had heard so many times before. But this time it touched me personally, and I could feel the pain myself, deep inside.

[Bali October 12th, 2003 – one year after the first Bali Bombings]

‘Save Us From Nightmares’ is a short story companion to Mark Bowling’s first book Running Amok – When Family and Foreign Affairs Collide (Hodder, Australia, 2006).