Death Penalty

A day of sadness and shame for the Asian-Oceanian region

There is surely no excuse for a a modern state: Asian,  European , African, American....and certainly not Oceanian...to support the death penalty

On a day when we are all concerned about the heaving casualties of great human tragedy in Nepal....our hearts are opened to  "a country like this......a  city like this" .
Our common humanity should remind us that we are citizens of a Common World. where  it is convenient to suggest we are privileged to live in security.

We will forget most likely about Sukumaran and Chan, executed this morning in Indonesia,......the stupid boys who became men in prison and then were slaughtered.

While there is some evidence to suggest that the 'ordinary' Australian community still has a hefty proportion of people who think it's OK to execute people.....if nothing else good has come out of this latest injustice in Indonesia it is that Australian political will appears to have been galvanised.
 against the death penalty. Equally well there is a serious issue about the way popular media has or has not aggravated this situation

One moderate commentator said this morning when the argument that "they had been rehabilitated" was again being put forward....'Well they were not there to be rehabilitated but to be......." and the conversation sort of tailored off.
I presume he was going to say punished!
Having been to Gaol in the last couple of weeks (here) I tried to talk about the process of reconciliation that the modern gaol is supposed to be on about. Mobilong Gaol seems to be doing pretty well in rehabilitating others.

Gaol is not just about punishment....though that is legitimate....we also should be about rehabilitation.

Both Chan and Sukumaran  appear to have been seriously and wonderfully rehabilitated...almost against all odds... there seems little reason to think that this is anything but genuine.

There are bigger questions too:  China continues to be the biggest executor . Dare we confront this powerful trading partner
The US, our most powerful ally,  is the most shameful and strident country participating in executions.  Where is our criticism of them?

There is much more to be said about this.

Medals

A friend told me yesterday that travelling through Australian customs with his military medals (quite a valuable collection both sentimentally and emotionally) his bags were rudely prodded and poked because the X Ray machine had picked something up.
"What's this?" said the rude little man; and when T went to get the medals out to show himhe was ordered to not touch the bag as that was his (the officious little inspector's) job.
This rather contrasts with some other experiences. We ourselves on a couple of occasions in our recent travels had to explain the contents of our bags, on all occasions only we and not the the official, were allowed to touch our belongings.
This is as it should be (at least in the first instance) since we are the ones responsible for them.
This did not stop proper investigation and actually allowed an higher level of accountability. What ever else you might say about the two Asian countries we recently visited, their regimens were always thorough and always polite. Australian official should take a leaf from their book.
And T followed up the story by remarking how different his experience when the same thing happened enetering the US, admittedly a little wiser he had the medals out his bag and ready to explain. The woman customs officer asked him to explain what they were and on finding out expressed the heartiest welcome to their land, and her sense of privilege at being shown the medals.
Like many Australian travellers we remark when we return that we could and indeed should do this stuff better if we are to be taken seriously

Grim Pickings

The hermeneutic of television is a fascinating thing. If one were, for example, to do research on how representative Sunday night viewing is of the breadth and depth of our culture, it would be quite interesting.
The ABC at 7.30 had the exquisite Wild China. I hope this will go down in the annals as one of the great documentaries. But I watched "Battle of the Choirs" on 7. What a great show. For those of us who love community music, it gives you real up. With 4 billion per cent more heart than Idol, there was both a real sense of competition and a powerful message about what is happening in real Australia. BUT...it's tear jerking stuff, it's really hard to compare one man's music with another's...
Of course being a man I had to channel flick, because Wayne Carey was on 60 Minutes. Now this was interesting, as 9 so threatened by Battle and Wild China that it had to play the 'titillation card'. Maybe!
Any way I ended up recording it. I do not know whether I will be able to stomach watching it. It seemed pretty stage-managed. Even the black mongoose himself....Ray Martin...seemed so enamoured of Carey that he didn't really manage to shake his arrogant persona (this was a far cry from the Denton interview...here...and one wonders if it was a corrective by Carey's media machine) The most laughable end to that interview was Carey declaring that he wanted to use this experience to become a 'counsellor'. I mean the man, while being media savvy, is as thick as a plank!
It gets worse because then the first of the two part series about Schapelle Corby......and it went on and on and on ...and I am still none the wiser.
I wrote some years ago about the (please explain) 'xenophobia' which was promoted in this case.
I was deeply disturbed when in Indonesia to erad an article by an Australian expat, the thesis basically being that the Indonesian legal system is corrupt to the nth degree.
Now, I guess, a case can be made for that. Gee our own system is so spotless!
But we have not so much allowed ourselves to hear the facts as to be appealed to as racists.
I was left unsure wehether this was what was happening here.
I don't want to have to watch episode 2 on Tuesday.
Compass had a deeply depressing but, it seemed to me, very important program about Torture (here)
Apart from all this, Hamish and Andy on the Rove show drank milkshakes and rode a roller coaster to see who would vomit first and the most.
Such was Sunday night.
Ah well I need to go and watch Wheel of Fortune!