By PHIL JARRATT
WHILE we were in the air (finally) in the early hours of last Saturday, flying home from the scene of two tragic terrorist attacks a decade or so ago, another calamitous attack was taking place in another favourite place.
The comparisons between the concert hall mass murders in Paris (which at the time of writing seem to have claimed 120 lives) and the Sari Club bombing in Bali are as obvious as they are odious. Both were attacks on the freedoms we enjoy by people whose fanaticism allows no such freedoms. The path to righteousness is narrow and stained with the blood of countless innocents.
I had tears in my eyes when I heard the accounts of the Paris attacks on the car radio on a cool, wet morning in Sydney. These were the streets we frequented in our France years, loving the relaxed pace of the city and the laissez faire (there’s a reason we’ve adopted the French phrase for this) approach to matters such as by-laws regarding where you can place a restaurant table on the pavement, where you can smoke a cigarette, or how seriously you take matters of security. It’s the same in Bali. It wasn’t too hard too get into the Sari Club wearing a bomb, nor was it too difficult to get a bunch of AK-47s into the Bataclan in Paris.
Looking at social media posts from French friends tonight, I know that indomitable spirit of theirs, as frustrating as it is at times and inspiring at others, will prevail. But every time a bastion of liberty takes a blow like this, the world becomes a more dangerous place, and we are all a little less free.
A blessing in Bali
A final (and happier) note from Bali. While being trapped by the Australian airlines’ mercenary approach to the ash cloud situation was frustrating and ultimately expensive, it did mean we were able to attend a small but wonderfully moving ceremony in the small and beautiful village of Cepaka last Thursday.
Now on the face of it, the Hindu blessing of a new factory and cafe/restaurant for the Bootstrap Cold Brewed Coffee Company might not seem all that exciting, but for our young friend Wayan Agus Parwita, this was a coming of age as a businessman. I’ve written about Wayan before here, so I won’t go into too much detail, but, the first-born of a tenant rice farmer and wood carver who made enough selling his carvings in the lobbies of hotels to put his son through university, Wayan had just graduated with a diploma in tourism management when he was almost killed riding home from work on the night of the Sari Club bombings.
In the subsequent economic downturn, there was no work for a tourism graduate, and Wayan kept the family compound going by working on cruise ships in the Caribbean for $70 a month plus tips. On a trip home between contracts, he met Made Lista and fell in love. He gave up his job and came home to marry her, learning to drive and taking a job as a tour driver. This was when we first met him, chugging along slowly and carefully on airport runs in his first little four-cylinder people-mover.
He was a perceptive and ambitious young man, as interested in Bali history as I was, so I hired him to drive, translate and culturally interpret for me while I researched my book Bali Heaven And Hell. He became a vital part of the process, and a close friend.
Since then, Wayan has given the wheels of commerce a serious spin, involved in negotiating land deals and business partnerships, but the factory and restaurant in his home village signalled his emergence as an important figure in local affairs, and it was wonderful to see the pride his extended family took in his achievement. Oh, and the babi guling feast cooked by his chef younger brother, with help from most of the village, was sensational.
Gongs galore for surf festival
Following last week’s triumph at the Sunshine Coast Business Awards, the Noosa Festival of Surfing continued its dream run with a bronze medal in the events division at the Queensland Tourism Awards last Friday. Still stranded in the tropics, I failed to make that evening either, so perhaps this will be our strategy going forward – keep the old man away and success will follow. The festival was ably represented by its director Sam Smith and entertainment manager Ellie Jarratt.
Another who had to miss the awards through ill-health was Sunshine Beach surfer, former Tourism and Events Queensland chair and long-time servant of the tourism industry Steve Gregg, who took out the outstanding contribution award. Well deserved, Steve, and get well.
