The following statements regarding the death penalty would strike terror in the hearts of our present government:
According to the Roman historian Plutarch, the death penalty in the time of Dracos was imposed for nearly any crime including idleness and the theft of fruit or salad. Draconian Code, Ancient Greece, 700 B.C.]
Later in the time of Solon, [600B.C.] people were executed for giving misleading speeches.
Perhaps we ought to ask why it got to this.
The man elected to the highest position in the country just doesn’t get it, even after the proposed head-roll by his own party. Thursday’s much-staged performance giving evidence in contempt of court and in parliament as well as the diatribe about the Human Rights Commission, meant to impress, was just ludicrous. It suggests an intellectual disability, a vacuous buffoon. We have scraped the bottom of the barrel. Abbott does not know who he is, what to say, which ideological or pragmatic principles to espouse. The Liberal Party has been extemporising policies during its childish Punch and Judy act in opposition and has continued these pranks through this extremely destructive time in government.
In David Dickson’s recent book on Dublin and how it evolved into a capital city from the initial settlement of the Vikings till now, he discusses the equivocation of many of the powerful Old Catholics, and dissenting Protestants such as Baptists and Presbyterians during an intense period of political danger, especially if an ambitious person were concerned that they would miss out on the loot ready for the grab by lusty predators in the colony of Ireland, because of their religion. He includes an observation written by Barnaby Rich, “a cynical, old soldier”, describing the dilemma faced by one of the citizens: I will never believe him to be an honest man that will first swear obedience to his Prince, and then will submit himself to the services of his Pope; that will go to church openly and will hear a mass privily; that will listen a little to the preacher when he is in the pulpit, but will never come near a communion . . .
Tony Abbott, seems to be a very mixed-up kid. How can he be a Catholic and maintain his sycophantic clinging to the English monarchy, who, needless to say, are not permitted to marry a Catholic? It speaks of some kind of self- flagellation or mere mockery of both institutions. If one were an ordinary citizen, you could be forgiven and remain undetected, but this would-be Englishman is the elected leader of the nation of Australia. Herein lurks a malignancy, symptomatic of Australian philosophical and political immaturity: a cultural cringe.
We take one step forward when we elect enlightened, progressive leaders who set about improving the state of the people and the environment, and then much to the collective chagrin of some, we take two steps backward, when selfish, squabbling, and egotistically-blind, lumbering sociopaths take the lead, steering us into the dark gloom.
The late Colleen McCulloch always wrote a good, holiday yarn, not least of all, she carried out serious, historical research upon which to base a story. In her book Bittersweet, a story about the socio-political development of towns in Southern Highlands, New South Wales, she describes the fledgling federation town Corunda, a hybrid of Bowral and Goulburn: Corunda had two members of Parliament, one for the State of New South Wales, and one for the Australian federation government in the new pollie-town of Canberra. Everyone knew that the big cities were the only places that politically mattered; there Capitalism and Socialism squared off against each other and forced their will upon the hapless voters, who probably because of the continent’s history of autocratic rule under virtually dictatorial governors, seemed conditioned from the beginning of democratic government to expect broken promises, poor performance, and corruption.
The adversarial Westminster parliamentary system is clearly failing the Nations that constitute Australia: the first nation of the original inhabitants, the second nation formed from the English invasion and the new third nation, a combined first and second which is also inclusive of all people from everywhere who are the pluralistic community in which we live today. Most people don’t get what they voted for, as the preference system, to name one aspect of the present system, is fundamentally flawed. The politicians of the two main parties whose agendas are simplistically described by McCulloch in her aforementioned book, seem to be at each other’s throats for much of the time, wasting taxpayer’s money and most particularly, under recent governance, peeling back good legislation, a further waste of time, money, product and effort.
A family member, who lived at the Catholic girl’s college next to St John’s, Sydney University, where the young student Abbott had resided, remembers witnessing his once-evident debating skill. That was then, this is now and he fails to be able to articulate even the simplest of ideas. Furthermore, after all this time on the podium, he appears to have no idea, to have no principles or visions for what could be a progressive, inclusive, egalitarian nation. Sadly, we are now becoming a nation that has no identity other than “oink, oink, oink”, or one that is a race to see who can make the most money the fastest and in the most unethical way possible, whilst neglecting those in need and those who endure a daily struggle.
The school debate teaches people to lie …
If one’s ability to debate is a prerequisite skill for political function, then it should be forbidden in our schools. Essentially, the school debate teaches people to lie. The students who plead the case for one side or the other, whether they espouse the statement or not, are honing the diabolical skills of perfecting the articulation of a well-formed lie, and often make up the cohort who go into the political arena where they employ the weapons of this literacy genre that applauds and facilitates mendacious statements. Thankfully, there are those who enter politics for the right reasons.
Generally speaking, the majority of the latter are not members of the two, big parties. Sadly, it is within this group of cross-benchers, where worthy leaders of this nation may languish.
Both of the big parties have lost the way and worse, they have lost their raison d’etre, becoming ruthless juggernauts, smashing their way through our society, destroying everything in their paths. In describing the un-united society of pre-Anglo-colonial Ireland, David Dickson remarks that: As in all predatory societies, the predators regularly fall out among themselves, which in time gave opportunities to their enemies. This was a time of inter-clan squabbling and about one hundred years before the Anglo-Norman invasion. The rest is trouble on a sacrificial scale and may never be history.
Turning to what has been long-neglected in Australian affairs, it was wonderful, almost a watershed moment, when at last, two fine speeches were made in Parliament on Thursday the 12th of February, with regard to the post-urgent matter of the two Australian men facing the death penalty in Indonesia ( TT here ). This is not our way, not for any crime. However, we have always been a nation of guns; we wield them here, we wield them there, we wield them everywhere. We are part of the “Coalition of the Willing” that destroyed Iraq, thus adding to a host of disenfranchised people who form death squads in the Middle East today. Australia is the forever-to-be toddler-child of a violent, rape-and-pillaging colonial power. We have merely accepted and taken the baton.
The speeches made by David Cameron and Tony Abbott in our Parliament recently were in fact, nauseating. Speak for yourself Tony, how bold you are to promote this British family notion, for all of us. Why are you not looking to the future for this nation, why are you not examining the present dilemma down here and most especially fronting up in Indonesia to save these young Australians? Why are you peeing in all the wrong pockets at all the wrong times about all the wrong things? These people are our people, and I dare to mention that if they were well-connected in Sydney or Melbourne high society, and to coin the ethno-stereotypical cliché were not “of Asian appearance”, would they never have been incarcerated on foreign shores.
I have appropriated, borrowed or stolen as the case may be, this exquisite collection of philosophies on the death penalty, [most very old] including the first two at the beginning of the essay, from the display in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, in 2014, where many of our ancestors languished before transportation to the penal colony of Australia:
Present this black idea of violence [i.e. capital punishment] to a bad mind contemplating violence; hold up the ghastly and untimely death by man’s hands; and out of the depths of his nature you shall assuredly raise up that which lures him on. [Charles Dickens, notes, July 1845]
It is in fact an obscenity to say to somebody who has killed we want to show you that we care about life so we will kill you too. [Desmond Tutu, 1931 – ]
The scaffold is a sort of monster created by the judge and the workman. A spectre which seems to live with a kind of unspeakable life. Drawn from all the death which it has wrought. [Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, 1852]
All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil, it is indispensable sacrifice to the common safety. [Jeremy Bentham, Philosopher and Jurist, 1748 -1832]
Is it not absurd that society which detests and condemns homicide in order to prevent murder, publicly commits murder itself? [Cesare Beccaria On crimes and punishment 1764]
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one. [Voltaire, 1694 1778]
Fear succeeds crime, it is its punishment. [Zadig 1747]
The first of all laws is to respect the law; the severity of the penalties is only a vain recourse invented by small minds in order to substitute terror for respect which they have no means of attaining. [Jean-Jacques Rousseau A discourse on political economy, 1712- 1778]
It is far more ignominious to die by justice than it is by an unjust act. Must we kill to prevent there being any wickedness? This only serves to make both parties wicked instead of one. [Blaise Pascal, 1623 1662, Pensees 1670]
In taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy but in passing it over he is superior. [Francis Bacon, 1561 – 1626]
If you expect to silence those who criticise your actions by putting them to death, your thinking is flawed. This way is impractical and does you no credit. The best and easiest way is not to stop the mouths of others but to make yourselves as good as you can. [Plato, 428 328 B.C. The Apologia]
And the other way:
Whosoever shed a man’s blood by man shall have his blood shed. [The Bible, Genesis 9:6]
Debtors who had outstanding debts to a few creditors could be killed and have their bodies sliced up. Each creditor was given a portion of the body relative to the amount they were owed. Thieves were crucified. [Ancient Rome, 5 A.D.]
*Jules McCue is a painter and writer with a special interest in Arts, Culture, Society, Australian and Irish History. Her new paintings have an Irish theme. She is pre-occupied with the relevant colonial world and related humanitarian issues as she prepares to write a book about Ireland, early Australia and Irish ancestry. Jules is also dabbling in raw, short films to which she adds her own rough music. The films are settings for the paintings.
