Oct 18 2002 – The most gruelling moment of the political week after the war on terrorism ripped with hellish ferocity into partying crowds in the Sari Bar in Bali, and into the Australian consciousness, came shortly after 2pm on Wednesday.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, was explaining to Parliament why he was going to break his promise of a day earlier to begin immediately bringing back the dead. Howard said he had decided to agree to Indonesia’s insistence that the bodies be positively identified by DNA testing before being returned to Australia and that this could take some time.
For a few minutes, as Howard described why comparing the tissue of the dead in Bali with the tissue of living relatives in Australia was necessary, the House of Representatives became the house of horrors.
As he described in scarifying detail the difficulties of identification – such as the fact that the good dental health of young Australians means they lack dental records, traditionally used to identify bodies – the gut-wrenching awfulness of what he was saying was etched not only in his face but the faces of all the MPs listening in horrified silence.
It is difficult to imagine that, even in wartime, there has ever been a more sombre moment in the life of the Australian Parliament.
The Parliament, like the people, had been numbed by the scale of the horror of last Saturday night.
But as the names and faces of the victims began to be attached to emergency medical evacuees, to the missing and then to the body bags and to distraught families and friends, the numbness began to give way.
First, to deep sympathy and sadness. But now, quite quickly, to anger. Underneath the grim bipartisanship of the initial political response to the bombings, hardheads agreed that it was most likely that the dramatically heightened sense of national insecurity post-Bali would benefit the Government.
Drawing parallels with the US reaction to September 11, which saw a surge in support for President George Bush, political strategists predicted that Australian reaction after October 12 would see a surge in Howard’s popularity. When anger followed shock in the US it was marshalled by the Bush Administration into overwhelming backing for the war on terrorism and the military assault on Afghanistan. Partisan politics was put on hold and, more than a year later, is still largely in suspension.
So far the Howard Government’s focus since the Bali bombings has been on the immediate challenge of managing the crisis. But some senior figures are making it clear that they believe the Government will have to give vent to Australian anger in much the same way as Bush did to American anger. “I think people will want retribution,” one senior figure said.
In the view of some in the Government, the case has been strengthened for Australia to make a major military contribution to any war on Iraq.
“The distinction between Saddam and Osama bin Laden that some of the commentators make is not there in the community’s mind,” one senior Government politician said. “I think after Bali the community’s outrage about terrorism will provide a strong electoral platform for joining a war against one of the world’s greatest symbols of terror.”
But if this view is based on applying the American experience to Australia, it may prove to be a major miscalculation.
The public reaction so far seems to be evolving quite differently from the American public reaction. The most obvious and immediate manifestations of anger are beginning to be directed at the Government rather than the perpetrators.
The Prime Minister’s hasty decision yesterday to fly immediately to Bali confirms this. The radio talkback barometer tells him that there are real risks for the Government that it is being seen to be failing the fallen and their families. Opinion is starting to take hold that not enough has been done to help sort out the chaos in Bali and not enough sensitivity is being shown to the desperate need of the relatives to get the bodies of their loved ones back to Australia.
Howard’s ordering of a review of the handling of intelligence warnings about the risk of terrorism attacks in Bali also reflects concern about a community backlash. That the victims could have been better informed of the risks of a Bali holiday and were not is undoubtedly a serious failure and the community is entitled to know why, and who was responsible.
These are dangerous issues for the Government. But greater dangers for the community may lie ahead.
There are already signs that some intend to take matters of retaliation and revenge into their own hands. The latitude that has been given in the post-Hanson period to expressions of intolerance and racial and religious bigotry has unleashed a dangerous demon in Australian society. That demon will feed off the vile crimes committed in Bali and the anxiety and insecurity that will inevitably be engendered in Australians, already with a disproportionate sense of fear fed by the border protection debate.
Howard helped feed, and benefited from, this sense of insecurity, at the cost of a nation more passionately divided over politics than at any time since 1975. But now a new style of leadership is called for. More than at any time since World War II, Australia needs a uniter, not a divider.
One of the corridor views in Canberra this week was that Bali has increased the pressure on Howard not to retire from politics because it will be harder in time of crisis to opt out.
That decision lies ahead but until he makes it, Howard faces a challenging period which will profoundly affect the way history judges his prime ministership.
There is only one course for him to take. However successful his wedge politics has been on border protection, the threat facing the nation after Bali is of a comprehensively different magnitude to the threat of leaky boats limping towards the deserted northern coastline. Howard’s task now is to be the healer of a dazed and hurt nation. The sensitive and sympathetic voice of national leadership that he has offered to victims of October 12, and to their families and friends, must become the voice of reason and reassurance as the numbness gives way to anger and thoughts of retribution. National cohesion is now no less a challenge than national security.