Never Again

It was a beautiful winter’s day in July. We were in Tasmania, an island off the southern tip of Australia, to attend the Festival of Voices  with the Sydney Children’s Choir.

Tasmania is beautiful. The first Europeans who visited this place noted that everything seemed upside down here. Even the plants and animals were like nothing they had ever seen.

That day we met the choir for sight-seeing and a concert in a place called Port Arthur. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. We were told that Port Arthur was significant to Australia’s history, because it was “the last one.”

In the mid-19^th century, Port Arthur was the site of Australia’s largest and most infamous penal colony. Thousands of “hardened criminals”, many repeat offenders for crimes as serious as theft, were sent to the prison for punishment and work. It’s remote location, on a peninsula off the southern tip of Tasmania, surrounded by cold, shark-infested waters, made escape nearly impossible.

Today the Port Arthur Historic Site is one of Tasmania’s most popular tourist attractions. The 100 acre site houses over 30 historic buildings, from restored houses to the remains of the asylum and hospital. From the top of the hill, the views of the ocean and surrounding forested mountains are spectacular.

The Last One

Port Arthur is also the site of Australia’s worst modern-day mass shooting.

On April 28, 1996, after cleaning up his lunch dishes at the cafeteria, a 28 year-old man set up a video camera, pulled a semiautomatic rifle out of his duffel bag, and began shooting. By the next day, a total of 35 people had been murdered, and an additional 23 injured.

Australians were understandably devastated. In response, the government passed a series of gun control laws, such as banning automatic and semi-automatic firearms, implementing a 28-day waiting period before being able to purchase a gun, and establishing a national gun registry. In addition, a firearm buyback program resulted in over 600,000 guns being destroyed.

In the twenty years before the Port Arthur massacre, there were thirteen mass shootings in Australia. In the twenty years after? Zero.

The drive to Port Arthur from Hobart, Tasmania’s largest city, is an hour and a half. The road winds through forests, farms, and small towns, and never strays far from the ocean. To prepare ourselves for our visit, Hubby and I listened to a podcast on Port Arthur’s history. What followed was a gut-wrenching second-by-second account of the massacre, including the point blank executions of six year-old Alannah and three year-old Madeline.

With those horrific images in our heads, we parked our car and headed into the Visitor Center. We grabbed a tourist brochure with a map and a brief history, and headed into the park. For several hours we wandered through the grounds, stopping to read about life in the prison and taking photos of the historical buildings.

Never Again

After lunch, we made our way to the church remains for the concert. I love choral music, and the music and setting were incredibly moving.

In keeping with their theme of events that shaped Australia, the choir performed a special piece they had commissioned about the Port Arthur massacre. Under the clear blue sky, in the 19^th century church ruins, on the site of the country’s worst mass shooting, the children sang:

Death has taken its toll
Some pain knows no release
But the knowledge of brave compassion
Shines like a pool of peace
May we who come to this garden
Cherish life for the sake of those who died
Cherish compassion for the sake of those who gave aid
Cherish peace for the sake of those in pain
Never again…. Never again….. Never again….. Never again…..

The tears that had welled up in my eyes started falling down my cheeks onto the grass. My chest felt heavy with sadness. And my heart pounded with frustration and anger.

“Never again” echoed in my head.

The survivors of the Parkland mass shooting have been using the slogan “never again” since February, when a gunman murdered 17 at their school. They’ve bravely taken on the NRA and members of congress, using their #NeverAgain political action committee, to demand changes to our nation’s gun laws. And yet, in just the five months after Parkland, there were 138 more mass shootings in the U.S., and no legislative action.

But here, at the bottom of the world, a country had chosen a different path. Because of the bipartisan support to fight the gun lobby after the Port Arthur massacre, the Australian children singing “never again” have essentially never experienced a mass shooting.*

Until 1996, Port Arthur’s significance to Australians was due to its history as a penal colony. But the Port Arthur massacre changed all of that. It changed Australia.

The worst of the Port Arthur massacre took place where it began, in the cafeteria and gift shop. After only 90 seconds, 20 were dead and 12 more seriously wounded. Today the shell of the building and the surrounding gardens are the site of a memorial.

As I explored the memorial, I imagined the scene as described by the survivors, with bodies and blood everywhere. Visitors, who, like ourselves, had been spending the day with their loved ones learning about Australian history.

It was peaceful. And heavy.

We passed a memorial plaque that simply stated “28 April, 1996”, and found the names of those who died etched onto a cross. We stood in silence next to the pond, which reflected the surrounding trees and sky, and watched a bird bathe in the waters before retreating into the grasses. And we discovered that the lyrics the choir had sang were from a poem that was etched onto its sides.

As an American, I had experienced more mass shootings than I could count. Each one follows the same script…. Shooting. Outcry. Thoughts and prayers. Rinse and repeat.

And yet, I have never seen a permanent memorial to honor the victims of these massacres.

This was the appropriate response to a terrible tragedy, to humanize the victims and honor their memories, and to cooperate and do what’s right to make the country safer.

A Different View from Down Under

Later that night, back at the hotel, we had the opportunity to hear from the children.

Experiencing Port Arthur had given them a greater appreciation for the events the day that, before they were born, had so profoundly shaped their country. They were especially moved when they saw their lyrics on the memorial, and their connection to the massacre would affect future performances of the piece.

Then the conversation turned towards us, the Americans. The elephant in the room.

Many of them were confused. They simply couldn’t understand why the U.S. hadn’t yet taken the most basic steps they knew had made their lives safer. Why, even after the Sandy Hook and Parkland shootings, did nothing change? What would it take?

I was having a sense of déjà vu.

Two years ago, as we accompanied the same choir on a tour outside Sydney, a gunman killed 49 in an Orlando nightclub. They asked us the same questions then.

Both times, we explained as best we could…. which, considering we don’t understand ourselves, proved nearly impossible.

These children didn’t feel less free because the government regulated firearms. On the contrary, they felt more free because they didn’t live in fear.

Finally, one young girl raised her hand. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why is someone’s freedom to own a gun more important than my right to live?”

Maybe the view from the bottom of the world isn’t upside down, after all.

 

*In May of 2018, a father killed seven people, including four children, in Australia’s worst mass shooting since Port Arthur.