Right from the outset I acknowledge the grief and suffering of those who have experienced loss and maiming as a result of the Bali bombings. Our continued sympathy rests with the families who have been devastated by this terrorist act.
This act was perpetrated by terrorists, who use as their weapon the destruction of innocent, unprepared, unprotected human lives; human lives that have no direct reference to the terrorist cause. Terrorists’ actions are designed to make a statement by destroying those lives, and this process is abominable both in its effect and its philosophy. It is barbaric, intolerable and must be pursued and defeated to maintain and advance the principles of modern civilisation.
A recent statement by Robert McClelland MP, shadow spokesman for Foreign Affairs (and then partially refuted by Kevin Rudd, Leader of the Opposition, so as to mitigate its intent) has brought the death penalty issue back into focus and made it once more an issue for debate. As it is a polemic public policy debate, it is incumbent upon those who have strong philosophical views as to the unacceptable nature of the death penalty to clearly state their position. Otherwise, they do little to stem the tide of opinion that thrives in the vacuum created by lack of a contrary view.
The death penalty is the destruction of a life whose threat to society by reason of their incarceration is neither imminent nor comparable to the process of killing them. The mechanism that is utilised is the public knowledge and/or display of a death as a tool to bring effect, supposed or otherwise, to those who may be enticed to the engagement of the actions or cause of the person to whom the death penalty is pronounced.
In fact history shows that quite often the only effect of capital punishment is the transfer in the public psyche of the individuals executed, from villain to martyr. As a martyr, as false as that premise maybe, the terrorists’ ability to effect society continues, permeates wider and lasts longer than their effect as an incarcerated villain.
In no way drawing a parallel between causes, but drawing a parallel to the effects of capital punishment on wider society, one could see public opinion galvanised in such things as the execution, in 1916, of 14 Irish prisoners (who at the time were seen as criminals) including Patrick Pearse, Sean MacDermott and James Connolly, behind a political cause; the future Republic of Ireland.
Similarly, the shooting of senior ANC member Vuyisile Mini (who was seen as a criminal at the time) created more political effect than what we can presume would have been prompted by incarceration.
If a person holds themselves to the fervent belief that they are a martyr to their cause, then you would have to acknowledge you are fulfilling their desire by executing them. If they truly believe their death leads them to their paradise then you are offering them a far better alternative by way of their execution than by their continued incarceration.
My objection to the death penalty is that we are killing a human life that is neither an imminent nor comparable danger to ourselves. As such we participate in a form of state-endorsed brutality, which as a deterrent is questionable but its odium is apparent.
Principles of state sovereignty make clear a country’s right to arrange its domestic society and laws in whichever way it sees fit, free from the interference of others. However, while countries must acknowledge the sovereignty of others, this should not preclude informed discussion, lobbying and a desire to see the general human condition universally advance. I strongly believe this is a reality of global politics today and has, in any case, been the pursuit of more noble causes in history.
If slavery was present in another state, would you say that is their business and we can’t comment on it?
When the destruction of a human life that is not an imminent threat is used as a mechanism to make a statement about an action or a cause, are you not validating others’ use of the same mechanism of destruction of life for a countervailing opinion that they may hold stridently against you?
If the purpose of the death penalty is to feed the human desire for retribution, then I query first if it relieves any suffering and secondly whether we should not, as a human race, seek counsel from the better angels of our being rather than encouraging those darker aspects we all have in our nature which, if they dominate our lives, take society to a more basic and cruel level which in itself encourages further affronts to the gentleness and humanity of a civilised society.
Aside from this, there are always other associated but vitally important arguments, such as the argument that no legal system is perfect. The death penalty is final, and there is inherently the possibility that an innocent person is condemned to death.
The legal system is a social construct; statutes devised by men and women which morph and flex over time to deliver into law the principles of politics rather than more complete and more fundamental principles of humanity. The death penalty may be the culmination of issues closely associated with political beliefs, rather than a reference to a wider aspect of humanity. Once you allow the death penalty, as can be seen in so many countries, you cannot quarantine it from the continual demands for wider use to sustain an emphatic position on other crimes as determined by the state.
When you make the death penalty a tool it quickly becomes one that can be used towards a myriad of other insidious and ignoble purposes, such as terrorising political opposition. The only way society can deal with this is with fundamental checks and balances, driven by a distinct moral code precluding absolutism and acknowledging the vagaries of human institutions, opinions and mechanisms of law.
This code cannot co-exist with a policy of state-sponsored destruction of human life, a life which represents no imminent threat by reason of the person already being incarcerated. You will never have absolute disclosure of all the facts that surround how that human found themselves in the position of perpetrating a barbarous act and more importantly, you do not know absolutely whether they are guilty; it is merely your best analysis of the facts provided.
Even if the person is guilty, the death penalty precludes the possibility of any sense of repentance or redemption, or that they may have accepted that what they may have done was wrong and they are now a changed person. Is the person that the state makes the ultimate judgment against, by ordering their killing, the same person in nature and character as the person who initially committed the offence? What purpose is served by executing the genuinely repentant perpetrator of an act other than to state that repentance and contrition have no value? Isn’t one of the most powerful statements that a person can make, “I have something that you did not have, I have compassion, even for you and even if you do not want it”?
A myriad of studies also proves that the death penalty is not a deterrent. So what is its purpose?
Australia does not have the death penalty. Are we consequently a lesser country than the US or China which do? Are we lacking some fundamental liberty that they have? Are they endorsed with a greater sense of law than us? Are we inherently more lawless because we don’t have the death penalty?
I do not abide by the conceit that we are intrinsically of a different definitive nature