What Did We Learn From The Bali Nine Executions?

A reflection on the events of the past week.

Capital punishment has always been controversial; its entire premise crosses ethical boundaries, giving the justice system the right to end a human’s life. Regardless of a criminal’s wrongdoing, the notion that a system put in place to protect humanity could also be the force to remove members of society is a frightening concept.

The decision by the Indonesian president to execute Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran (along with six other death row inmates) on April 29 brought capital punishment to the forefront of our national conversation. Our more integrated role in the global community allowed a major opportunity for widespread discussion of these very moral issues. Instead, the battle waged became nationalistic; a plea to protect ‘our kind’ rather than delving into the ethical complexities associated with the death penalty.

Australia’s original plea for clemency stemmed from the belief these two men had undergone intensive rehabilitation and were now benefitting the prison community. This argument revealed one of the greatest flaws of capital punishment: that it offers no opportunity for the convicted to repay their debt and alter the course of their journey. Because of the surrounding media coverage, the potential existed to change the landscape of the justice system. However, something less meaningful emerged: a nationalistic plea to merely save the Australians.

Just days prior to the executions, a celebrity video consisting of well-known Australians, such as Geoffrey Rush and Guy Pearce, went viral, causing the hashtag #SaveOurBoys to trend. The video focuses entirely on Chan and Sukumaran’s situations, and in doing so, detached itself from their wrongdoing, and the issue with state-ordered executions. Instead, it focuses on an impassioned patriotic plea for Tony Abbott to go to Indonesia and, in some way, prevent the deaths from occurring.

The aim of this message was to harness ideals of mateship, which have been ingrained in the Australian image, to ‘Save Our Boys’.  The lack of mention of other death row inmates (in particular, those who are still punished frequently in developing nations) meant that the plea failed to actually deal with the issue of the death penalty.

In addition, the Australian Federal Police has come under extensive scrutiny by the public for initially choosing to tip off Indonesian officials to the drug smuggling Bali Nine, knowing that Indonesia carried the death penalty for drug trafficking. Since the executions were carried out, the AFP has been forced to release a statement defending their actions, which led Sukumaran and Chan to be arrested in Indonesia and face Indonesian laws rather than Australian laws. As the executions continue to be discussed as a national failure, the only lesson being learnt is that protection of our own citizens is a higher priority than dealing with the global injustices that continue to occur.

The recent executions have allowed Australia to gain a greater insight into the flawed justice system of surrounding nations. However, it has also exposed the failure of Australia, and potentially other nations, to not deal with international injustices and instead focus merely on their own citizens.

The executions, although its own tragedy, could’ve been a stepping stone towards dealing with the greater issue of the death penalty, instead of becoming a debate between nations, with no impact on the continuing problems of international events. What the executions taught me was a brutal lesson in the nationalised nature of the global society; that, whilst nations are interdependent for economic reasons, in matters of justice, the concept of “us vs. them” prevails.

Emily Lam is one of Student Edge’s student contributors. Learn more about the Student Edge contributors program.