westgate from the wikipediaYes they were the famous words of Johnny Rotten. As he jumped on stage at the Sex Pistols swan song gig in San Francisco in the late seventies. They played one song (after no soundcheck), Rotten promptly laughed into the microphone, threw it to the ground and well, that was it. They broke up and that was that. The crowd gave an uproarious applause. For they had seen a true moment.

Well I probably was barely alive then, but one moment I was truly alive to see was 911 September 2001. Frankly I am agnostic to the politics, because i’d rather be erudite than patriotic; true to oneself before one’s country. Because despite all the conspiracy theories (and some damned compelling evidence), something I remember was before that event made me realise that I too was cheated, as were we all.

Sometime around 1999, I was at Monash Uni in Clayton campus waiting to start an exam. I was proabably eating a sandwich, or nervously flicking through notes before the big exam. Anyway, we were around the engineering wing of this campus and I was looking at something I thought was some avant garde corporate art sculpture, by your typical acid whacked 1970s type.  I was crap at studying my notes so I took a closer look.

What I thought was Kraftwerk in steel was actually an artefact of a great tragedy. It was the piece of the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne that buckled in 1970. A small plaque next to it confirmed its plight. Now this was a bridge that took almost 10 years to complete, connecting Melbourne’s east and west. Relatively insignificant in the overall world sceme of things (with all due respect to those who died).

You could forgive those in Manhattan for not knowing of their tragedy 30 years ago. Anyway this big hunka steel was put there, in the grounds of the engineering wing, so that they could determine what the hell went wrong and caused the bridge to collapse. Pretty rational post mortem stuff. You know, so it doesn’t happen again. I didn’t think anything more of it (for years) and marched with the other sheep into my advertising exam.

Then it hit me the like so many tonnes of bricks. Four or so thousand people died when the three towers fell. And you know what, the steel trusses that collapsed were sent to a scrap yard in New Jersey. Within days of the collapse, they were on a junket to Iraq (how ironic) as scrap metal. FEMA or no other nerdy government boffins for that matter weren’t allowed near them.

Tens of tradies died in the seventies making this bridge, god rest ‘em. Anyway my point is this. Why, IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS, W H Y is this artefact still on public display at Monash Uni and the ruins of the Twin Towers (and Tower 7) have probably been melted down into Saudi scrap?

I’m not asking you to dismiss everything else, or start wearing a beret and a cap. But even the most right wing Bush lover would have to admit that’s a bit suss. Three big towers 4000 dead, no post mortem on the trusses. Bridge collapese in Melbourne, 30 or so dead, piece still on public display. You can’t put that down to culture.

With a big snarly Johnny Rotten smirk on my gob, I ask you, ‘ever feel like you’ve been cheated?’.