SJW NEWZ

Three people of Asian descent were among the six victims stabbed to death in the Bondi Junction Massacre on April 13.

Asian Australians are now speaking out for stronger knife control laws in the wake of this tragedy. 

Asian Aussies Against Knife Wound Attacks (AAAKWA) Founder Mrs Mee So Sooki, who formed the lobby group on April 14, 2024, says her response is not merely a knee-jerk reaction, but rather a well-considered and essential response to an endemic societal concern.

Mrs Sooki says there is precedent in Australian legislation to respond with a swift, strong and severe response following such a bloody and gruesome use of weaponry.

“Following the Port Arthur massacre in April 1996, the Howard government rightly established heavy restrictions against the ownership of automatic and semi-automatic weapons,” Mrs Sooki says. 

“I want to know what the Albanese government is going to do in 2024?” 

Mrs Sooki says she has formed AAAKWA as a response to what she calls Australia’s “indecent love affair” with the knife.

She points to the fact that Asian cultures have used chopsticks at the dinner table “for numerous millennia” as a potential road map for knife reform in Australia.

“What could be easier or more convenient for eating tiny, thin, round and smooth pieces of rice than two long wooden sticks? What could be easier for grabbing at a long, wet, slippery noodle than two pieces of wood which have to be held in the same hand? Chopsticks are so convenient and versatile,” explains Mrs Sooki.

“As we know, most Asians are known for being well-fed, big eaters who are commonly overweight precisely because it is just so easy and simple to eat our delicious food so fast and without any awkwardness when using chopsticks.”

The AAAKWA Founder IN Australia (FINA) Mrs Sooki says Australia needs to “cut its cords from the Union Jack flag and its binding threads”.

“The trouble is that Aussies, of whom many have their heritage from Great Britain and continental Europe, have this life-long, generational commitment to the mighty knife and regard it is an essential tool in their meal consumption. It's always ‘slice this’, ‘dice that’, ‘carve this way’ and ‘chop that way’, as if they could not consume their meals without their precious knives,” the AAAKWAFINA says.

“I see parents teaching children as young as two or three to use a knife and even chastising their kids when they want to use their fingers to eat instead. 

It’s so hypocritical! On the one hand, toddlers are told to pass scissors by the handle while holding the blade, then they are literally putting these sharp objects into the hands of their children, telling them to cut at things, and then they get shocked when someone is stabbed. It is pure cultural myopia. It’s got to stop.”

AAAKWAFINA Sooki admits she is well aware of the common rebuttals of Australia’s knife lobbyists, or she calls them, ‘Big Carver’.

“Yes, they will claim, ‘Knives do not kill people – people do!’. But how many chopstick related massacres can you think of throughout history?” asks Sooki, rhetorically – because when this journalist tried to answer the question, she just kept talking.

“Sure, Chairman Mao Zedong had a five-year plan to purge the 'rightists' from the Chinese Communist Party in the late 1950s by using chopsticks as weapons, but most of that time was spent whittling away at pieces of bamboo while Mao's senior officials tried relocating the Great Wall of China in the world's slowest attempt at gerrymandering. But I digress!” AAAKWAFINA Sooki says.

“The point is…” Sooki pauses dramatically, “The point! Of a chopstick! See…” she says, pressing the chopstick’s tip against her forefinger, “…It’s not that sharp!” she shouts with the confidence of a newly enthroned empress.

“The point of a knife, however, very sharp – and that's the point! The point is dangerous and deadly!”

AAAKWAFINA Sooki says she still harbours memories of knife related trauma as an Asian Australian teenager, new to the country as a legal immigrant in the 1980s.

“Personally, I have never felt safe eating at a Sizzlers, for example – and not just because of people who lean under the sneeze guard to get their food at the salad bar,” AAAKWAFINA says.

“When someone orders a steak, it comes with a free tool of murder to be used for the duration of the meal. There is no license required to use it, there are no background checks via the police database for any prior convictions, they don’t even need a signed reference from a JP or Catholic Priest. A minimum wage, green-aproned wait-staff simply says, ‘Here is your overcooked Angus T-Bone and here is a serrated Victorinox to go with it’. Then the employee obliviously walks away without any fear for his or her safety or that of those in the vicinity.”

Like an Asian female Jack Ryan, AAAKWAFINA is appalled at the ignorance to such clear and present dangers.

“Frankly, I would rather take my chances with some sneezed-on seafood extender salad. In fact, I would rather eat the wings of the Wuhan Bat from the wet market in the village where my grandparents grew up. For me, that would be safer then sitting back-to-back in a booth behind some FIFO worker, who is high on uppers, but low on self-esteem or wifely respect, and has finished his surf and turf and looking for some bigger game to have a stab at…” she reflects. 

“I mean, whether I consume a Wuhan Bat or a Sizzler Sneeze Snot Salad, at least they have a vaccine for COVID now. But nothing can inoculate against a disembowelling or arterial spray from a sliced carotid.”

“But do you know what surprises me most about this incident?” queries AAAKWAFINA. “It’s that it didn’t happen sooner.”

AAAKWAFINA says she is not normally one for conspiracy theories, but she sees this incident as part of a larger socio-politico-economico-historico-anti-yoko-ono context.

“I blame industry and the capitalistic endeavours of the utensil industrial complex – or as I call them – 'Big Carver' – and their connection to British Imperialism. Every shopping centre has a little imperial outpost – King of Knives! There is even one at Bondi Junction Westfield. King Charles may not be collecting taxes from us anymore, even though his head is now on our coins, but he is still making sure that these ‘Weapons of Mass Dissection’ can easily make their way – boxes of six at a time – into your kitchens, bistros and pretentious cafes that don't just sell coffee,” AAAKWAFINA says.

“Even kids picnic playsets will have plastic imitations of these murder weapons and in these playsets you can always just Velcro attach the two halves of toy apple or fish back together over and over again after you cut them again and again. It creates a false expectation around the effects of knife violence as if somehow any damage done by a knife can just be put together again,” she says.

“But as we all know, a stabbed-to-death human is like Humpty Dumpty – the tragic inspiration for a really catchy nursery rhyme that will be passed down for generations to come and sung by children with glee while the original horrific meaning is long forgotten.”

The tragic events at Bondi Junction have led to the Archers lobby to speak up for the loosening of laws regarding carrying unconcealed bows and arrows

Six people were stabbed

Do you know how long it takes to stab six people to death plus injure another 12?

If we were able to open carry, after one, maybe two at most were stabbed, myself, or one of my merry men, would have reached into our quiver, loaded up the bow with a nice fixed blade broadhead and boom! - We would have thwarted this nefarious loon's plans - this mass murderer would only, instead, be a murderer, and in that time, we also could have also stolen from some of the rich Eastern Suburbs shoppers from Vaucluse, Darling Point  and Bellevue Hill and given it to the poor Eastern Shoppers from Botany, Matraville and Hillsdale. Alas, twas not to be.

Frankly, I am sick of seeing Archers marginalised in society. It starts with poor media representation. 

We had a good thing going with Robin Hood. But every film remake gets worse and worse. Disney's Robin Hood made him a fox in the 1940s. Mel Brooks' Robin Hood Men in Tights made us a laughing stock in the 1990s. And Rusell Crowe's Robin Hood almost made me want to give up archery myself. 

Sure, in DC's Arrow show he has cool abs, but when you look at the Justice League, the main game for DC, Green Arrow is nowhere to be seen.

And when kids want to dress up as one of Marvel's Avengers at the Book Fair parade each year, at every school you see the same thing, dozens and dozens of these boys dressed as Iron Man, Hulk, or Captain America, even a few trans-curious kids as Black Widow with a few dodgeballs down the front of their black blouse. You might see the odd blondie dressed as Thor too, doing his bit to advance Aryan awareness in our increasingly multicultural Australian suburban public schools. 

But tell me , how often do you see a Hawkeye? I even heard of a few white boys claiming to be the Samuel L Jackson version of Nick Fury from the films, no boot polish on their face or anything. Just an eye patch and a black raincoat. They could have just claimed to be white Nick Fury from the first 40 years of the comic books.

But a Hawkeye? Pretty much never. 

Well there was one boy, a shy thoughtful type, who liked the nuanced skills of Hawkeye, which were harking back to the days of yore, when men shot apples from their sons heads and Austrian composers wrote overtures to celebrate the achievement - this little Australian lad wore his homemade Hawkeye costume to school - because the department stores won't bother stocking them - and as soon as he walked through the school's front gate on the morning of Book Fair, the story goes that he was mocked mercilessly, he was called a bow-bearing boob, a feather firing fairy fagboy, a Peter Pansy Poofter Puffer, and Russell Crowe's retarded nephew. And that was all just from the teachers!

All I am saying is, any man with a bow and arrow could have taken out that Bondi Junction Stabby Murder Man within seconds. 

It's just like the saying goes:

Give a man a fish, and you will  feed him for a day.

Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a life time.

Teach a man to fish with a bow and arrow and you will have someone who will want to talk about bow fishing non-stop so much that you will want to stab him to death more than a crazy person wants to stab shoppers at a Westfields.

A father of three and husband of one, Greg Burns, is feeling a deep sense of loss after the tragic stabbing of six that also left another 12 injured.

Greg's wife Lisa was shopping at Bondi Junction Westfield at the exact time that the stabbings took place, but was shopping one floor down picking up a coffee from Donut King after completing grocery shopping at Woolworths.

Greg is mourning the loss of the missed opportunity that is statistically unlikely to ever come his way again.

Greg regrets that his wife of 15 years was not one of the 6 victims killed by the stabber.

"Or she could have been my lucky number 7" Greg says with tears in his eyes.

"Our marriage had been functionally over for at least three years. Dead bedroom, no exchanged words of affection or even affirmation. Frequent nagging. Then I would blow up over the smallest things because of the stress and dissatisfaction I was feeling toward Lisa."

"We were just trying to stay together for the kids. But even our eldest, who was entering into the puberty years, she could see things between Mum and Dad just weren't right."

"My wife had planned to pick up some groceries from Woolies on that Monday afternoon. Being school holidays I had the week off work so I could have some quality time with the kids. Since I was the one home with them, dealing with the toddler and all their silly fighting, I asked Lisa to do me a favour and pick me up a coffee from the Luxe cafe. They made the best coffees there. But instead she just did what was convenient for her. Which is what she always does... and she picks up a basic coffee from the Donut King, because it is right near the Woolies. She didn't feel like going up one flight of travelators with a trolley - far too much trouble to go to for the sake of her husband - and a coffee is just a coffee right?

Well, had she done was I asked, and gone to Luxe cafe, she would have been there at the exact time Joel Cauchi was running about threatening and stabbing nearby victims. The CCTV shows that people in the Luxe cafe and its vicinity felt threatened and were genuinely fearing for their lives.

To think that my wife was potentially so close to becoming the slaughtered seventh and that a simple act of marital unfaithfulness by her in not getting my coffee from where I wanted is what kept her alive just sickens me to my stomach.

Like every dissatisfied husband of course I have had the fantasy about killing my wife.

But of course, your mind goes through all the difficulties, the many ways you can get caught, the evidence you inevitably unintentionally leave behind - and the thought of being the subject of a Netflix documentary in three years time. It just makes it untenable. 

Then you fantasize about her dying in a car crash - on the way to work, of course, when she is by herself - not when the kids are in the car - and you imagine what it would be like to be the Dad with three kids who lost his wife - and what an attractive prospect you would become to women on the dating apps. People see you as a good Dad, stable job, safe prospect for an attractive divorcee or younger woman looking for a mature, responsible partner because all the younger millennials are selfish and reckless. I could start all over again, guilt and consequence-free.

And then this tragic event comes along - a crazed knife wielding incel - in a shopping centre, clearly targeting women. And my wife is there - right time, right place, and what would have been the perfect vulnerable position. A heavy trolley full of groceries, a hot coffee in one hand, an easy target for even the most dimwitted knife wielder. And all because of her wilful, self centred, ingrained desire to withhold even the most simple pleasures from her husband, Lisa was one floor below where I needed her to be. The universe had put all the pieces in place. My wife-free future was beckoning me. It was just up to Lisa play her part. And like the many victims living and dead stabbed by Cauchi, my future was cut to shreds when my wife was not, because of where she was not."

When asked about what's next, Greg is philosophical and acknowledges he will not likely ever have this opportunity for a guilt-free exit from his marriage ever again.

"You can book a trip to Bali, but you're not likely to get a bombing. You can book a cruise ship trip, but icebergs are so easy to navigate these days, and flu viruses that kill the young and healthy are a once per century event - like Hayley's comet. And a comet hitting the earth? Sure, it almost happened twice in 1998, as detailed in the documentaries Deep Impact and Armageddon. But again, the chances of it wiping out my wife, but me and the kids surviving? Minimal... 

I have thought about replacing my wife's sunscreen with mayonnaise, but skin cancer is a speculative move and slow going in any case.

The way I see it is this: tragedies are happening all the time, all over the place. But they rarely manifest in the same way twice. For example, Bondi Westfield reopened with higher security presence. But the way these things work, it is so unlikely that a perpetrator would choose to go to the exact same location to commit the same type of crime. 

When Islamic terrorists committed their biggest attacks, they always changed it up, in the USA  first it was aeroplanes into landmarks, then in London it was public transport, then USA again, a marathon race, then in France, an Eagles of Death Metal concert. You can't pick it!

I think I have two options that statistically will get my wife into a situation where she is tragically killed and it was totally out of my control. 

First, I encourage her to go back packing with some of her old uni friends. Surely we are overdue for some Ivan Milat - Wolf Creek copycat action.

Second, we relocate to the USA, and I insist that my wife goes through public school again like Adam Sandler in that other 1990s documentary 'Billy Madison' - it can't be too long before she ends up being the victim of a mass school shooting.

I lobbied for years to change the name of the suburb to the much more positive and optimistic Bonlive instead of the sad and fatalistic Bondi.

And now this has happened. I feel you invite this type of violent muderous behaviour or at least leave yourself vulnerable to such attacks when a suburb is has 'DI' in its name. People said Bondi was TOO ICONIC, the name of the beach was famous worldwide. 

I would argue too many tourists have drowned at Bondi beach over the years too, as a result of this stubborn refusal to change the name of the suburb to Bonlive. Just think how many tourists could have returned home to their families, tanned and breathing on an economy fare on a QANTAS flight - rather than pale and not breathing, in a body bag.