Something to ponder about: read here
An Australian citizen, Mr.Nguyen is due to be executed on 2 December in Singapore after being convicted of trafficking 400 grams of heroin in 2002…
The simplicity of the news is somewhat shocking, isn’t it? In a modern media world full of war reports, prisoner’s abuse, daily news on murders, rapes and other inhuman deeds, the information on something like hanging of a one poor soul could be easily lost in the lack of attention…as humans, we do not care much if it is too far from our reality…but of course for the one to be hanged on Friday it is the most real reality, isn’t it?
I’ve read this news, carefully tucked deep inside the main heroic stories, just a tiny link on the bottom of a page…and I thought about how little we know of the places where others live…how do they live…their lifestyle, habits, culture…and it is only when we hear some disturbing news occasionally finding their way from behind the curtain, only then it makes us question our own perception of the rosy World.
*did you know that in Singapore the import, manufacture and sale of chewing gum (??!!) has been banned since 1992, and the penalty for smuggling gum into the country is a year in jail (!!!), and a 10,000 Singapore dollar- ($5,500-) fine? I mean – CHEWING GUM???!!!
The execution for drug smuggling while seems well deserved, also causes another, parallel thinking…it is mostly drug traffickers who get caught and punished…and they are mainly from the poorest background, or accidentally fallen into the net of drug dealers, or simply desperate people. Isn’t it the indication of poor state policies that people would gamble with death for such a nuisance? From the other hand though…400 gramm…sounds like not a lot…still… that's 26,000 doses of heroin, 26,000 possible heroin addicts, 26,000 possible deaths from overdose, 26,000 possible grieving families - all due to the decision of one man…
**Hmmmm…I’ve just re-read the above and it occurred to me that this sounds a bit “familiar”…isn’t it the same as when invading other countries for the sake of “preventing POSSIBLE attacks”? However no one man is on a death raw for that decision..but that's just some "lyrical digression"
I can’t make up my mind on how I feel about this…It is a crime, no doubt, yet there is much more to the thoughts the news has stirred…when I imagine what one can feel awaiting the death at dawn…he will be hanged…is it an “easy” death? Is there such thing as “easy” death? What one feels at his last seconds of breath? How human it is to “legally” take someone’s life? How different from murder is it? How strange the laws are twisted in some places, where it is “human” to execute serial killer by lethal injection, to take his life in the most pleasant manner (if there is such thing as “pleasant death”) and yet it is “inhuman” to give a terminally ill patient the same dose to easy off his pains…who are we to decide who deserves which death?...and what strange ways does go the logic of campaigning against death penalties yet the same time being uncompassionate enough to watch a sick person die while debating if it is human to end his tortures…
Sad and creepy thoughts today…[~sighs]
An Australian citizen, Mr.Nguyen is due to be executed on 2 December in Singapore after being convicted of trafficking 400 grams of heroin in 2002…
The simplicity of the news is somewhat shocking, isn’t it? In a modern media world full of war reports, prisoner’s abuse, daily news on murders, rapes and other inhuman deeds, the information on something like hanging of a one poor soul could be easily lost in the lack of attention…as humans, we do not care much if it is too far from our reality…but of course for the one to be hanged on Friday it is the most real reality, isn’t it?
I’ve read this news, carefully tucked deep inside the main heroic stories, just a tiny link on the bottom of a page…and I thought about how little we know of the places where others live…how do they live…their lifestyle, habits, culture…and it is only when we hear some disturbing news occasionally finding their way from behind the curtain, only then it makes us question our own perception of the rosy World.
*did you know that in Singapore the import, manufacture and sale of chewing gum (??!!) has been banned since 1992, and the penalty for smuggling gum into the country is a year in jail (!!!), and a 10,000 Singapore dollar- ($5,500-) fine? I mean – CHEWING GUM???!!!
The execution for drug smuggling while seems well deserved, also causes another, parallel thinking…it is mostly drug traffickers who get caught and punished…and they are mainly from the poorest background, or accidentally fallen into the net of drug dealers, or simply desperate people. Isn’t it the indication of poor state policies that people would gamble with death for such a nuisance? From the other hand though…400 gramm…sounds like not a lot…still… that's 26,000 doses of heroin, 26,000 possible heroin addicts, 26,000 possible deaths from overdose, 26,000 possible grieving families - all due to the decision of one man…
**Hmmmm…I’ve just re-read the above and it occurred to me that this sounds a bit “familiar”…isn’t it the same as when invading other countries for the sake of “preventing POSSIBLE attacks”? However no one man is on a death raw for that decision..but that's just some "lyrical digression"
I can’t make up my mind on how I feel about this…It is a crime, no doubt, yet there is much more to the thoughts the news has stirred…when I imagine what one can feel awaiting the death at dawn…he will be hanged…is it an “easy” death? Is there such thing as “easy” death? What one feels at his last seconds of breath? How human it is to “legally” take someone’s life? How different from murder is it? How strange the laws are twisted in some places, where it is “human” to execute serial killer by lethal injection, to take his life in the most pleasant manner (if there is such thing as “pleasant death”) and yet it is “inhuman” to give a terminally ill patient the same dose to easy off his pains…who are we to decide who deserves which death?...and what strange ways does go the logic of campaigning against death penalties yet the same time being uncompassionate enough to watch a sick person die while debating if it is human to end his tortures…
Sad and creepy thoughts today…[~sighs]