CAPITAL HYPOCRISY

What exactly is driving so many Australians – from the Prime Minister down – to vent their spleen at Indonesia over its likely execution of two Australian drug smugglers? The answer is simple – selective outrage.

It can’t be about capital punishment itself.

We don’t seem to have issued dire warnings over Indonesia’s recent execution of citizens from Brazil, Malawi, Nigeria, The Netherlands, Vietnam and Indonesia itself.

We don’t seem to have made much of a fuss over the fact that in 2013 – according to Amnesty International – nearly 800 people worldwide were put to death by their governments. And that figure excludes China, which refuses to tell anyone what its execution rate is.

Could it be that the 2013 figure doesn’t bother us too much because most of those killed were from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and (probably) China? Perhaps they’re not on our list of ‘civilised’ states. But what of the 39 Americans and 8 Japanese executed in 2013? Where was the noise about them?

Wherever, whenever, whomever and however, capital punishment is abhorrent. Australian lives are worth not one jot more or less than any others. By all means protest Indonesia’s intentions. But do so because capital punishment is evil and Australia should energetically campaign against it. Not because, this time, ‘our lads’ are the victims.

23 January 2015