There is an analogy I once heard...if you squeeze an orange then you expect orange juice to come out. The speaker went on to ask "what comes out of us when we are squeezed??" anger?? fear?? or is it something inspiring??.........
No one was being squeezed harder than Andrew Chan the other night as the 8 men were led out for execution. By all accounts Andrew Chan did a roll call to make sure all the other 7 to be executed were all ok. One account I have read speaks of how when the group started singing some of the guards became visibly upset. It was Chan who went over to them and embraced them and told them that he forgives them. Chan lead the choir in song until the moment they were silenced by the guns.......
If I was asked to make an assessment, in the context of the orange analogy, then in my estimation Chan's conversion was genuine. It is a shame though that it took the death sentence to bring him to the sober realization that he needed to change his life.
Now with all that aside I would say to you that these executions were never about what was right and wrong or what was a fair punishment for the crime or even about a war on drugs. These executions were carried out in order to gain political support for Joko Widodo. Nothing more, nothing less. The electorate in Indonesia is no different to the electorate here...that is to say it is made up largely of clueless fools who are looking for quick fixes and easy answers. Nevertheless they are clueless fools who vote. Joko relies on the support of the angry vengeful types (just like the type we often see on Hotcopper) who are eager to swallow his hard line rhetoric and oversimplified solutions to the drug problem. There are Islamic political parties in Indonesia who get support from some of the hard line Muslim community. It was by promising a hard line on drugs that Joko won enough support from this group to win the presidency. If it were more popular to spare these guys then he would have done that.
Nearly ten years ago Muhammad Cholili made the bombs for the second Bali bombing which killed 20 people and injured 100 more. There were 4 Australians killed and 19 more injured. In a goodwill gesture that surprised even Cholili (who declared that "God’s destiny really is beautiful" at the time of his sentencing), he was released from prison last August.
"He has never broken any prison regulations,” according to the Indonesian justice ministry prisons spokeswoman Ika Yusanti “If he commits any crime or creates any problems in the community, he will be sent back to prison.”
But the good behavior thing did not wash for Chan and Sukumaran. By all accounts they were leading constructive lives in prison and were teaching shorter term inmates skills that would help them break the cycle of release and return to prison. So why this discrepancy in how justice is administered??
Again we need to look to the electorate and some of the hard liners in the Islamic community. Right it wrong it doesn't matter because they vote but many of them would sympathize with Muhammad Cholili for being a Muslim and as a man doing the work of Allah. The bottom line is that granting Cholili the mercy that was not extended to Chan and Sukumaran is politically popular.
I find it very sobering that one man would put his own ambitions before the welfare of those he has been elected to watch over. I think Chan and Sukumaran did have something constructive to offer even if they did remain in the Indonesian prison system. This is not even to mention the issue of the unspeakable grief that their families must now endure.
If you are one of the people here who seem to want to dance on the graves of Chan and Sukumaran then I will just say this: I can't help you with the hatred and lust for vengeance that oozes from you but I would at least urge you not to be stupid as well. Joko Widodo, like most politicians, was appealing to the stupidity of the electorate. There are as many drug addicts today as there was the day before Chan and Sukumaran were shot and any number of further executions will also not change that statistic one bit. This was never about justice or overcoming a major social problem. If you do nothing else then at least try to see this for what it really was.
