I’m not talking about a verbal or newspaper attack, a political attack or a funding cut. I mean that somebody threw a bomb out of a car at a group of people at the One Mile Community in Western Australia. Let me repeat that: someone threw a bomb at a group of people.
A bomb.
Thrown at civilians.
In Australia.
Yesterday.
Four people were injured, one seriously.
In looking for news on this I couldn’t even find a mention of it in the Sydney Morning Herald online. SBS and the Australian have an identical 140 words of copy from Australian Associated Press. The Guardian Australian edition has roughly the same thing. ABC Online does marginally better with actual quotes and some details about what happened, but the report hasn’t been updated since yesterday. On the front page of the Australian online edition there are three headlines under the news category “The Nation”, the third reports that “A school south of Sydney has been put into lockdown after an 11-year-old student allegedly threatened a teacher with a pair of scissors.” As opposed to the FOUR people who were actually HURT by a BOMB that you have to search for if you want to see the report. If you Google “Broome attack” most of the hits relate to air raids in 1942.
Did any television stations manage to send a camera and a reporter? Did anyone see it on the news? I don’t watch tv news so maybe it was there, and I missed it. Perhaps someone can assure me that this led the evening bulletins? How is it possible that this isn’t screaming across the front pages of our newspapers?
I’ll guess. The attack took place Way Over There. The criminals were white. The victims were brown. There are times when this country is vile.
Categories: media, social justice, violence
Friday Hoyden: Gillian Triggs 
Hands up anybody now who’d trust Rolling Stone to tell their story? 
Media Circus: No Snappy Title edition 
DUFC #69 
Hoyden About Town 
No Mention in the Worst in WA either when I looked about an hour ago
I heard about this via Indigenous tweeps. Not a single word of it on the radio station this morning as I drove to work. Bloody disgusting. As the tweeps said – had the victims been white this would have been front page news. Even worse the police seem to be treating it as a prank gone wrong. A woman needing emergency surgery is not a prank. That’s attempted murder.
FYI there was a report on Channel 7 about the attack. The journo responsible is @Chris_Campey. The bomb is described as a firework in his report.
http://au.gwn7.yahoo.com/w1/video/-/watch/18696181/two-arson-attacks-in-less-than-12-hours-in-broome/
Disgusted this is described as a “prank” in the news. As Mindy says, it looks more like attempted murder. In fact, it looks like an act of terrorism. Surely, if this happened anywhere else in Australia, if it happened to anyone else, and perpetrated by anyone else, it would be all over the news.
I haven’t really kept up with news in the last 24hrs or so, but comes up on ABC news, published yesterday, when googled: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-28/bomb-style-attack-on-aboriginal-community/4918830
Though, it’s a very serious news story – you’d hope to hear more about it everywhere.
Let’s share this across the world tweets emails send comments to newspapers & politicians LET’S SHAME THEM !!! I pray for our people who are injured.
i suppose the media cover would have been different if the bomb thrower would be brown and the victims white…
I get my news from Twitter, especially when I’m O/S as I am now, and I’m pleased to say this was one of the most discussed items in my feed. However, my feed is a bubble, and as everyone has already noted, this should be seriously mainstream news, not just in my bubble. My thoughts are with that community, and how the lack of response to this incident will play out there over the coming years.
It’s difficult to existentially conceptualise as to this mentality, a bit desolate.
As I understand it there has been a housing shortage during the mining boom in that region and a conspicuous lack of concern from TNC’s and governments as to an infrastructure and housing construction return to the region.
Maybe with lots of buffaloes about town and space at a premium bad tempers and macho stupidity are the price for a bit of neglect.
Great post Orlando. Facebooked and twittered (And yes, I know that’s not an adequate response.)
“the criminals were white”
All we know is the attack occurred at an Aboriginal Community, we don’t know the ethnicity of the victims or criminals.
I find your assumption sensationalist and a little racist.
I should address why I surmised that the perpetrators of the attack were white. It is absolutely true that no information about their race has been released, and I am completely willing to post an update to the contrary, should it become appropriate.
But this is the statement from the police officer who spoke to the press: “I’m looking forward to catching up with the people responsible for this and bringing it to their attention, and also bringing them before the judicial system.” That is simply not the way the police talk about Indigenous people they are seeking in relation to a violent crime. There is a long history of the race of the perpetrator going unmentioned in police statements and news reports only when the person is white.
As I said, happy to post a correction if further information calls for it. And disgusted that talking about something this serious, in the face of so much media neglect, can be thought of as “sensationalist”.
I don’t know who threw the bomb. But you don’t know Broome if you suggest it wasn’t meant to injure indigenous Australians. One mile is an exclusively aboriginal settlement. My husband and I ministered to the residents as well as other communities throughout the Kimberley. One mile provides inadequate housing to a group of people ravaged by alcoholism and drugs. It and communities like it need appropriate intervention by the State and Federal governments.
Police News Releases here > http://bit.ly/1e8MKA7