I do say, unequivocally, that when a government takes the life of a person in the name of whatever catchcry it chooses, then that government's integrity is compromised.
Its ability to be believed as civilised, rational, and honourable is just ripped away.
I do say, also, that when other governments sit by and watch their neighbours justify taking life and say little or nothing for fear of "damaging trade", "affecting diplomatic relationships", "treading on toes"; then that government's integrity, also, is compromised.
I feel for the Australian government's inability to act, but one must say....too little, too late....
The fine American poet, Wendell Berry, writes this about death in his poem "Ripening"
The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us.
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young,
now count the cost of having been.
And yet as we know the dead
we grow familiar with the world.
We, who were young and loved each other
ignorantly, now come to know
each other in love, married
by what we have done, as much
as by what we intend. Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed
of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepares. But that is bitter
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer, we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of this world!
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