On Tuesday night, Indonesian time, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan will each be shot through the heart by a firing squad, along with seven other inmates.
Andrew and Myu are reformed. They are not the same people they were ten years ago when they were arrested.
Ten years ago.
They are being killed by the Indonesian state after ten years of transforming into what most would deem to be pillars of society. Inmates sing their praises. Their prison governor wants clemency for them. Families…shattered.
Ten years. Talents nurtured for ten years.
Ten years for this:
Myu’s painting of himself after his execution demands silence. How does a man paint his own corpse, posing after a violent execution? Why should we accept that any person should need to depict their own corpse?
To all of the Sukumaran and Chan families, and all of their friends and supporters, I send you my love and the love of my children.
I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to my children.
Image of Myuran’s painting taken from The Australian.
I know how I explained it to our children, oh so long ago.
Different societies and cultures have different ideas as to what is justice.
Some seek to punish a crime, even by killing the criminal.
Some seek to rehabilitate a criminal and release them to contribute to society.
This nation, like our own, insist upon punishment and even death to one convicted of a crime. Occasionally, an innocent person ends up executed, to be exonerated after their death.
I then asked our children which of those systems sounded the most effective.
I’ve noticed in their adulthood, they’ve tended to not vote for those in favor of capital punishment.
My only reply to this is “God bless you Myuran, your senseless death leaves me speechless “.
Patrick Thiedeman.