A Cryptic Report
Tuesday, 9th January, 2007
The Christmas and New Year holidays were a newspaper and internet free zone for me so my knowledge of the death by bashing of a young man in Griffith came exclusively from ABC radio. At first it sounded like just another piece of senseless teenage violence that was probably alcohol induced but then there came references that hinted at something more. There was a mysterious "we" involved as in one of the youths doing the bashing saying "This is now we roll in this town."
For we listeners, it was as if the ABC was giving a replacement for my missing crosswords. Just that cryptic reference and then the voice of the mayor saying there was no racial trouble in his town. It sounded like the ghost of Al Grassby giving another of those defences of the Italian community to deny that there was any Mafia-like involvement in the death of a boy of good Anglo-Saxon stock.
The repetition of the dead man's name, Andrew Farrugia, suggested this was not the case so a fertile mind was left with the impression that the unmentionable "we" could be Moslem but was probably Aboriginal. They were the only groups I could think of where political correctness would dictate that the true identity of murderers be kept secret.
And so it was this morning that while turning to the morning cryptic I glanced at Paul Sheehan writing on the opinion page of the Sydney Morning Herald and learned that those charged were Aborigines and that it was a common occurrence for young Aborigines to cruise around Griffith looking for a brawl.
It is hard to disagree with Mr Sheehan's conclusion that Andrew Farrugia was killed by racists and that "the time for whitewashing, blame-shifting and rationalising racism in any form is over."
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