Execution - Slaughter in the Jungle

Since the execution of eight people in Indonesia this week, including two Australians, all of whom I do not believe deserved to be killed, I have been torn as to how to respond. I have read almost everything that has been written by politicians and the commentariat and I have discussed the events with friends and family. I feel both angry and saddened, but I wanted to stay my hand for a day or two before I decided on my final position.

I think the dilemma here is a human rights dilemma. How far should a country like Australia be friends with, trade with, have cultural exchanges with, education arrangements with, tourism arrangements etc with a country which has less than a glowing human rights record? And we need to be careful here for Australia itself has been accused by the United Nations for being less than wonderful in our treatment of our indigenous, so we are not really in a position to throw too many stones. And yet, it is essential in my opinion to evaluate and make judgment upon other countries’ records. I do not see how we cannot, while we strive to be better ourselves.

Australia’s political class for the most part have, thank God, moved on from capital punishment. It is unlikely that capital punishment will ever be re-introduced into this country again in the future, so total has the move away from it been for us politically and socially. Most would see it as being immoral. Yes, there are people out there who still agree with it, but they are unlikely ever to agitate for it and were they to do so, they would never get it past the politicians and the bulk of the population who would nowadays have nothing to do with it.

And anyway, there is a simple and powerfully effective argument that not one of them can stand against. If it was their son or daughter or them themselves, would they still say, ‘well, they knew what they were getting into when they did this crime. Do the crime, pay the penalty’? No, when it’s their loved one or themselves, then there is every reason to believe in redemption, that people can change, that people can be remorseful and turn their lives around. Their argument for the death penalty is theoretical only and distinct from the human. When it touches them, they change their tune very quickly. They didn’t shoot through the heart the drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran this week, they shot the newly married Rev. Andrew Chan and the artist and prison counsellor Myuran Sukumaran; two very different men from the two who were imprisoned ten years ago. Of course there is rehabilitation and redemption. What a sorry species we would be if it were not so.

There is no need for me here to reiterate the many and sound reasons as to why capital punishment is abhorrent. I will just say that for all those reasons for me personally, I do not believe any individual or body or institution or state has the right to delete the existence of another human being. It is judicial or presidential or state murder, nothing less. When the theatrics are stripped away, it cannot be anything else. It is cold and calculated and in the case we have seen this week, also cruel and torturous.

No amount of rationalising by the Indonesians or the Americans or the Chinese or the Saudis can ever justify killing another. Do not get me wrong. I understand only too well that there are evil people in this world who are not fit to be part of a society. Societies cannot have these people meting out destruction and devastation in their wake. They are dangerous and they must be removed. That’s why we have the rule of law. If it costs the tax payer a considerable amount to have such people incarcerated, then so be it. I am happy to have my taxes go to keeping some people off the streets where they can do no harm, be they drug lords, murderers, rapists, terrorists or any other kind of evil personified, and forever if necessary. So, I did not agree with Saddam Hussein’s hanging or even Osama bin Laden’s summary execution. There can be no double standard. We cannot kill the ones we don’t like and save the ones we do. Killing is killing and killing is wrong. I think state initiated murder demeans the country that legislates it. Some of the Nazis imprisoned after WWII stayed in prison for life and died there. That’s how it should be.

I would like to see Australia stand tall and proud in its dealings with other nations and have a range of different levels of friendship. The highest level would only be offered to democratic countries with the rule of law, certain freedoms that are espoused by the UN Declaration of Human Rights and who have no truck with capital punishment. We should be able to say, ‘we cannot be as close a friend to you as what we would like to be while ever you have capital punishment. Given that, we limit our friendship and therefore our contact’. Idealistic dreaming, they would say. So, yes I would expect the comments, ‘what about trade, what about commerce, what about the economy’? And I guess I am saying, ‘what about it’? Do we want a better world or don’t we? Do we want to improve the lot of humanity or don’t we? When do we take these things seriously and not just pay lip service to them? I am talking about human rights. There are countries in the world today where I, just for being gay and being married to Chris, could be legally put to death. What happens if I were to be picked up in an airport transiting through in one of those countries and thrown in prison there to rot and eventually be killed by judicial process. Are we going to really say, ‘well he should have known better than to be gay in that country?’ The problem is that I am gay wherever I go.

From the moment we heard the news of the executions, we heard Government ministers and the Prime Minister qualifying everything they said with how important our friendship with Indonesia is. The friendship and the future is the most important thing to them, otherwise they would not be qualifying their remarks with such obsequiousness. We are already talking about everything going back to normal as quickly as possible. Everything will be forgotten for the sake of the relationship. But I am not so sure the ‘relationship’ is the most important consideration.

I don’t think it should be business as usual in a week or two or three. I think that even if it costs us some trade, we should start to stand up to such countries and we should start encouraging other like countries to stand up too. We shouldn’t just settle back and forget. If human rights are more than just a pretty phrase and a nice thought, we have to make them so. I do not agree with mass boycotts usually. They are a blunt instrument. However, I did endorse a boycott of the last Winter Olympics in Sochi after Russia’s blatant and cruel crackdown on LGBT people. I just thought, sport is not worth the propaganda coup that Putin wanted in the midst of widespread LGBT hate crimes. And I don’t think trade is worth it either. We eventually did boycott South Africa and while it did hurt ordinary people for a time, it was a powerful driver that isolated the country and moved her into the process of change. I personally boycotted Fiji when it was under military rule. I have a thing about military rule. I don’t like it. Soldiers with guns should not be running our societies. I have personally boycotted Singapore since 2005 after they murdered young Van Tuong Nguyen. As much as I would love to experience Singapore, I feel like they owe Australia an apology and I still remain unwilling to go. I have not forgiven them for killing a very young man who made a mistake on the grounds that his death would be a deterrence to drug smugglers. Please Singapore show the wonderful change in drug statistics since 2005 so that we can all see how effective killing people is. So too with Indonesia. I look forward to a massive diminution in their drug statistics now that Andrew and Myu and six others, one of whom was schizophrenic and didn’t even understand he was being executed, have been shot dead.  

I am afraid that though I have Indonesian friends and have had two Indonesian boarders many years ago, I have not yet forgiven the Indonesian President or Government for perpetrating this vile act on eight people who more than likely, deserved a prison sentence, but who did not deserve to be murdered in a clearing in a jungle in the dead of night. It’s not the kind of world I want. And I know that the only way to effect change is to be the change. I hope I do get to see Australia stand up for what’s right. I am going to try to personally. After this week’s callous events, I would like to see Australia lead the world and push bi-laterally and in the United Nations for global change, for the total and complete irrevocable abolition of the death penalty. At the end of this week, that’s how I feel.