For a wide review of these themes lookout for my latest collection of short stories, Beyond Borders.
For some, the notion of borders is that of a hard border, one clearly defined and assertively maintained. Certainly, in the Covid19 era borders reflect this standard, yet borders are by no means constant, or definite, whatever the political maps might suggest.
Living now as I do in one of the world’s geographically smaller nation-states ranking 175th our of 194 countries and dependencies I’m not so much aware of its limited area as its proximity to Malaysia and Indonesia. Staying at a hotel on Sentosa Island recently as there is really nowhere else to go in the Covid19 closed border era, I was struck by how close the Riau islands are. I can see them between the high rise office buildings of Singapore’s CBD, from my sitting room, but only a sliver. From Sentosa, there is a clear view of Batam island.
With the help of Google Earth, I calculated that the distance from the place where I was staying to Batam, was a mere 16 kilometers. An easy kayak paddle for me. Of course, attempting to paddle that distance, as I might often have done around Sydney Harbour, would quickly see one arrested by one or the other coast guards, and the possibility of being placed in immigration detention. So I’ve never tried to paddle to Batam. In fact, I’ve left my kayak in Sydney.
People still travel across the Malacca Straits as both sides of this maritime divide were once part of the Sultanate of Johore. It was based at the southern tip of the West Malaysian peninsula with a palace in Singapore as well.
Ancient and undeniable porosity
Years ago I wrote about the ancient and undeniable porosity that is such a prominent feature of Australia’s northern margins.
I wrote. “When people say we’ll control who comes to these shores and the circumstances in which they come, I quoted Australia’s most divisive post-war Prime Minister, John Howard, and I reflected on the absurdity of such comments.
Australia might be the land that’s girt by sea, at least since the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, but we aren’t impervious, our northern margins are characterised by a most ancient and enduring porosity.”
In a subsequent post, Indonesia and Australia: perceptions of border security from the land that’s girt by sea, I wrote about the Living on the east coast of Australia and how easy it is to retain a sense that in the land that’s girt by sea borders are quite finite. Indeed, Australia is a modern nation-state with very clear rules about land borders, maritime borders and exclusive economic zones.
Physical and unseen borders have long been with us, but their relative porosity has varied over time as a result of natural events like Pleistocene sea-level changes, migration of people, ancient imperial expansion, or the more recent eras colonialism and imperialism. Generally, no matter how certain and impervious they might appear, or how non-negotiable nation-states might insist they are, borders have not remained permanent.
Changing borders
Throughout my early adulthood, there was a hard border between the southern and the northern parts of Vietnam. It sat within a demilitarised zone (DMZ).
The DMZ showing the Ben Hai River
The Hien Luong bridge spanned the Ben Hai River at the 17th parallel which was the border between the two part of Vietnam.
Hien Luong Bridge, once the border between North and South Vietnam.
Fortunately, the border is long gone, but at the time it had what seemed permanent, strengthened by the monochromatic understandings of borders imposed through the Cold War. The yellow was in the southern portion and the red, now blue, in the northern portion.
Some borders uncontrolled
Ironically, in this region where for so long there was a violent and bitter dispute over a border some borders are now very loosely controlled.
Not far from the old Hien Luong bridge is a place called Hamburger Hill, in the outside world. It was the scene of a futile military exercise during the Vietnam war, or American War, as the Vietnamese call it.
In 2014 I visited Hamburger Hill, the site of a rather futile military exercise during the war. My companions were keen to climb right to the top of the hill. I was recovering from a fall in Indonesia the year before and still developing strength in my right leg, so I stayed by a shrine of remembrance and enjoyed the surroundings.
There wasn’t a lot to see, mainly jungle
Not long after my friends left, I caught sight of two men. They entered the small clearing where I sat. Neither carried anything. We communicated as best we could. I had an iPad with me so I showed them pictures of Sydney and Singapore. They were intrigued.
Soon my friends returned. Our guide translated for us. They explained they had been hunting. Odd they’ve now spear, catapults, bow and arrow, firearms, knives or machetes. It seemed like an unlikely tale.
I knew we were close to the border with Laos. My best guess was that they were smugglers. Whatever they were smuggling they hid before approaching me.
Later I had a close look at the location with Google Earth. There was an obvious route between Laos and Hamburger Hill, and clearly no easy way of regulating passage between the two countries.
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These days any events like the Beruit explosion trigger memories for the Bali Bombings for me. There were two explosions at Legian on the night of October 12, 2002. I heard them from Ubud yet through all the noise emanating from 26 kilometers away, I could only discern one continuous rumbling.
Footage of the Beruit explosion
Difficulty in assessing the death toll
I don’t know what to make of this yet. What I do know, from past experience is that the current death toll over 70 and the current details on injuries, over 4000, will be quite inaccurate. Such a forceful explosion will have a much greater death toll as some of the injured unfortunately pass away. There is also the morbid problem of body counts. With such an explosion these are problematic. In my current collection of short stories, I address this issue in a story A Morning by the River in which two people with firsthand knowledge of the Bali Bombings compare notes. Of course, I haven’t written this piece to highlight my story but as a reminder that we face a grim anniversary tomorrow.
Hiroshima anniversary
I was 11 years old, in 1958, when my parents took me to see the exhibition of the Hiroshima Panels. The Panels reveal the impact of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on people. This experience has shaped my life both in my opposition to all forms of nuclear armaments but also as a guide to the impact of bombs on the human body.
Eight works on rice paper
The Hiroshima Panels No. 2 FIRE, 1950
The Hiroshima Panels, eight works on rice paper depicting the impact of the Hiroshima bomb on the lives of ordinary people, were a watershed in attitudes towards the Japanese people. Iri and Toshikio Maruki who both lost family members in the bombing created the panels as a first-hand record of the bomb’s impact. With shattered infrastructure, and while ministering to the needs of survivors, they worked in a small studio, with the simplest of materials creating works of profound significance. Four years and eight hundred sketches later their first 6ftx24ft panel was complete. Seven more panels followed before the Hiroshima Panels were ready for exhibition. In their small studio, it was impossible to assemble a complete panel they could only guess at the final effect.
Comments at the time
The Australian Women’s Weekly reviewer of the time observed that while their choice of materials – Indian ink, vermillion, and rice paper – was largely due to their poverty, there was no poverty in the conception of their work.
In the exhibition brochure, Vance Palmer wrote, “These eight Hiroshima panels have come out of a deep emotion that has been restrained and shaped by the discipline of art. And so they do not merely affect the nerves but awaken basic feelings – pity, love, compassion, and a sense of the oneness of human beings in the face of suffering. Finally, they compel those who see them to vow that such diabolic visitations shall not occur again.”
A sensation
The Panels were a sensation. In Adelaide 10 000 people viewed the Panels in less than four days, the biggest crowds ever attending an art show. Just five days after the exhibition opened at the NSW Art Gallery, police were called as 15 000 visitors crammed the gallery overflowing into a jostling crowd outside.
Reassessing the Hiroshima panels after the Bali Bombing
Working in the morgue at Sanglah Hospital after the Bali Bombings was a traumatic experience. Conditions in the morgue were appalling. In one sense I was relieved that I had encountered death and images of death before, but nothing on this scale. Standing amidst the stench of charred and uncovered bodies my mind ran back to 1958 the year my parents took me to see the Hiroshima Panels, the closest thing I had ever seen to this. Searching for an abstraction, a distraction that might offer some relief from this hell, I wondered. Was one purpose of art, to map the edges of human experience, to provide an emotional or a spiritual map? I was grateful that the Maruki’s, confronting their own tragedy, dealing with their own trauma, had allowed me to come to the place before, to remotely sense it, to be forewarned.
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Posted in history, Personal comment | Tags: bali bombing, Beruit Explosion, Hiroshima, Trauma