Drug trafficking

In the entry I’ve just red Sean points out the connection between Australia and Asia. Although half of the kids he went to school with were of Asian descent, the ties to this continent (Asia) seemed for him to end at the airport. On the other hand, although Vancouver’s population seem to predominantly be Asian, Australia is by far more attached to Asia than Vancouver. Trading partners, defence partners and vacation spots. While for the people from Vancouver the popular escape is Mexico, Australians most favourite and besides cheap (“assuming you don’t enter or leave the country with bricks of heroin strapped to your chest”) getaway is Bali or Thailand.

The Bali Nine, Schapelle Corby, a 29-year-old former beauty student from Queensland, Australian model Michelle Leslie and finally Nguyen Tuong Van, a 26-year-old Vietnamese-Australian were all in possession of illegal drugs. The Bali nine is a group of nine young Australians whose barmy endeavour was to smuggle 8.3 kilos of heroin from Bali to Australia in April 2005. Not wanting to get their hands dirty, Australian government left the job up to Indonesian authorities, knowing well what the upshot of a conviction in Bali might be. They may face death penalty.

“These incidents only leave me filled with questions. Was the Australian government acting in the right by allowing nine citizens to be arrested in Bali to face the death penalty when they could have been arrested here and faced a more humane punishment? What possesses a young person to take such a risk?” These questions bother Sean. Some of them, for example the question of death penalty, upset me too. Who are we to decide over other people’s death? Is if death were a punishment. The death penalty is a complete nonsense, absolutely incongruous in these days. We should once and for all dispel the undercurrent idea that we are GODS. If we honestly want to swear vengeance, the best punishment for a convict would be to let them alive and make them suffer physically and psychically and not release them of pain. It all reminds me of Sad am Hussein. The medieval way to kill him was ludicrous. Not that I defend him. Not at all. But there must have been another way to castigate him. IT DOESN’T BEHOVES US TO DECIDE OVER OTHER PEOPLES LIFE/DEATH.