ways of punishing

I presume the poor fellow in Singapore is dead by now. Of course I’m opposed to capital punishment, and it’s all appalling, but I’m with Phil Gomes in noting with some cynicism the vast differences in the way this tragic case has been handled by government, public intellectuals, the legal fraternity, the media and, at the bottom of the pile, the general public, and the case of one David Hicks. Always excepting, of course, a few brave souls who’ve tried to keep up their rage. As Gomes points out, there are plenty of avenues for complaint to international bodies in the Hicks case, there’s just insufficient will, not to mention apparent hostility (though I suspect much of that’s faked for the sake of our government’s yank cronies). Maybe we just don’t feel Hicks is sufficiently ‘reformed’ – though he hasn’t actually committed any crime. Of course, nobody really knows what he’s thinking these days – we’re not allowed any information that might actually humanise him.