So I will remember them for what they became, fine men who helped many, many others. Fine men who faced their deaths with dignity. But more importantly fine men who died at the hands of a corrupt Government, pawns in a political power struggle to show the world they weren't weak. And murdered by a weak leader who thinks the way to prove you aren't is to kill the powerless to prove his strength.
As for those who cheered on the death squads with the chant they were drugs dealers who cares, they kill people. I couldn't say it any better than this by Amy Corderoy SMH.
"I didn't realise we were reverting back to the days of eye-for-an-eye punishments - a concept first introduced in Babylonian times - but if we have, let's not be inconsistent about it.
How about introducing the death penalty for drunk drivers, or tobacco industry executives?
After all, in the latter case we have numerous people who knew, for decades, their product was deadly for one in two of the people who use it (making it even more deadly than heroin).
Some companies profited for years while they hid evidence, lied to the public and influenced governments, and now are continuing their deadly behaviour in developing countries.
Of course, it would be barbaric to see the chief executives of these companies taken to an island off the coast somewhere and shot.
But for some reason we don't think the same thing about Chan and Sukumaran.
Finally, the third argument goes, "Chan and Sukumaran knew what they were getting into, so why should we care about them?"
These young Australian men, and what they did seems unimaginably stupid. It's easy to make harsh judgements about a decision we would never have made ourselves - even easier to take the moral high ground from a drug-dealer. (All the while conveniently ignoring the fact that there were other people who knew what they were doing, too, namely the Australian Federal Police who let them go to their deaths.)
Perhaps all this is just a way of safely living out our most primitive revenge fantasies?
After all, this way we get to keep our moral high ground about capital punishment, insisting that we are still not in favour of it. But we can't help it if those brutal Indonesians like giving out cruel punishments, so out of "respect" to their culture we'll support them. Well, how about instead we respect them by treating them as our moral equals, who are just as capable of rejecting the death penalty as us?
We should never support the death penalty, which is not a deterrent and only serves to allow governments to enforce a most brutal, unjust, irrational "justice" - generally against those who have the least resources and ability to defend themselves.
When Chan and Sukumaran die I will feel for them. I will think of their grieving families, of their brutal, bloody deaths and just the sickening waste of it all. And I hope those Australians safely on their moral high-ground will pause for just a moment, and think about just what it is they have been advocating for."
All eight men who faced the firing squad this morning did so without blindfolds. They stared straight ahead. Andrew and Myuran the calming influence who helped others to face the barbarity of what was to befall them.
So like Amy I hope those Australians safely on their moral high-ground will reflect on what they have been advocating. I hope unlike Andrew and Myruan they are never in need of forgiveness, compassion and caring. And I hope their families never have to face what Andrew and Myuran's have been forced to endure. And if they are and they find themselves on the receiving end of the hate and the same lack of humanity they have shown, that they ponder and remember, there is such as thing as karma.
Rest in peace boys. You won't be forgotten.
