The Execution Draws Near (And It Really Sucks Arse)

Come A Long Way Since

One of the more gruesome news moments in the 1980s was when Malaysia hung Chambers and Barlow. There were calls for clemency which were not heard and perhaps with even a touch of glee Mohamad Mohair's government proceeded with the execution. Never one to miss a moment for sanctimony, Mahatir ran with the toughen drugs line and the men were hanged. it's amazing that it's been almost 30years since and here we are this time pleading with Indonesia for clemency for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran who are on death row on Bali.

Times have changed quite a bit in one sense that the drug trafficking criminals used to be white boys and now they're Asian Australians. The desperation of drug trafficking has clearly moved down a few rungs in the socio-economic ladder from the working class Aussie to the poor immigrant sons. Make of that what you will - there might even be a silver lining that we're so engrossed in the attempt to save their lives. It gives one a sense of hope that the Australian sense of justice and compassion are colour-blind.

The more those sorts of things change, the more remains the same that South East Asia lives with a collective chip on its shoulder. The mention of the aid given to Indonesian the wake of the 2004 Tsunami has given rise to a nationalistic anger over in Indonesia which, is understandable but perhaps  wilfully missing the point in such a way as to evoke the word "ingrates". The point about aid is you need it essentially at the time you need it. And when you take it, you take it exactly because you need it. Returning the money in coins today is a cute gesture but it doesn't change the fact you needed it at the time. Returning it doesn't exactly erase the good will that came with the aid in 2004.

So just as Mahatir sneered some sort of post-colonial patter about justice - as if such a thing applied with the Chambers and Barlow case - Joko Widodo will presumably opt to execute Chan and Sukumaran and claim justice was served, while buying a dose of ill-will in Australia because we can't vote him out there. (Heck, we have trouble voting out Tony Abbott) The worst part is that Chan and Sukumaran are getting executed not for justice but for colonial payback, with a good deal of hypocrisy loaded on top of it. Listening the futile litany where deterrence saves lives is going to be extra-sickening. Also the bit about standing tall in the face of Australian diplomatic meddling. That'll be the good one - the irony of hanging asian immigrants when championing post-colonialism seems to escape Widodo completely.

As Charlie Brown and Snoopy would say, Bleah.

I've pondered why the Federal Government hasn't explored a prisoner swap. We could easily give up   any number of Indonesian citizen drug smugglers in our prisons in exchange for the two (Heck, take all of them if it means not executing people - heck, take back Schapelle Corby, lord knows we don't really need her). Obviously this hasn't been a line reasoning that seems to have any working merit, which suggests that Indonesia values its citizens much less than we value our own, and this adds to the difficulty negotiating with the Indonesian government. It also reveals a lack maturity in the Indonesian polity in as much as they see the pleading as a political problem when in fact Australians are pleading a principle.

All that said, I think Australia's come a long way since.