With Apologies to Mahatma
One of the greatest souls in the history of humankind, Mahatma Gandhi, declared "an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind". I kept a poster of him displayed on my classroom wall with those very words inscribed across the bottom and I tried each year to inculcate my students with an understanding of this noble sentiment.
Try as I might, however, to light my little candle against the darkness, there are so many out there who have no concept at all of what the great soul meant with his words. I just read about three of them today. I try hard, really I do, when I encounter such stories as this one, to maintain a hold on my belief in the words of Gandhi, but it is hard. It is damned hard.
A suspected Islamic militant assured judges in Jakarta on Wednesday that he and his two co-defendants, Lilik Purnomo and Irwanto Irano, were really just misunderstood pussycats, the type you'd want to take home to dinner with Mom. After all, said he, he and his buddies were just looking for a little good old-fashioned revenge when they beheaded three christian girls as they were making their way to school on Sulawesi, an Indonesian island torn apart by religious violence. The deed wasn't done to their satisfaction until they had carried the heads some distance from the bodies, leaving one of them outside a church.
The man talking to the judge had no problems with admitting to taking part in the beheadings. The defendant, Hasanuddin, goes by only the one name - delusions of being Bono, anyone? "I was indeed involved in the beheadings", he declared.
No, his problem lies in being understood, or rather, misunderstood. The good Hasanuddin was concerned that the court should understand his noble personality. "We are not cold-blooded killers", he affirmed. It's just that he felt authorities were failing to take appropriate action to avenge the deaths of Muslims.
With such blatant disregard for human life being flaunted, with such callous and uncaring cold being aimed at children, I damn well lose sight of the great one's words and begin getting all kinds of ideas for the sentence I would like to see handed down to these animals. Can I share the one I like best?
I imagine it would hold true of the victims' parents, that they are not cold-blooded killers either, so of course, I don't imagine they would want to impose the death penalty. I think a fitting alternative might be to let the bereaved families dictate which body parts should be lopped off of these warm and caring cutthroats. Maybe a couple of judicious swipes with a machete could result in three warmer, gentler hatchet men. A couple of well-placed amputations could help them view the world and their place in it in a whole new light. In order to assure them that none of this was being done without the very best of intentions, perhaps they could be given the say as to where their dismembered parts would be placed.
I am sorry, oh great soul.
Try as I might, however, to light my little candle against the darkness, there are so many out there who have no concept at all of what the great soul meant with his words. I just read about three of them today. I try hard, really I do, when I encounter such stories as this one, to maintain a hold on my belief in the words of Gandhi, but it is hard. It is damned hard.
A suspected Islamic militant assured judges in Jakarta on Wednesday that he and his two co-defendants, Lilik Purnomo and Irwanto Irano, were really just misunderstood pussycats, the type you'd want to take home to dinner with Mom. After all, said he, he and his buddies were just looking for a little good old-fashioned revenge when they beheaded three christian girls as they were making their way to school on Sulawesi, an Indonesian island torn apart by religious violence. The deed wasn't done to their satisfaction until they had carried the heads some distance from the bodies, leaving one of them outside a church.
The man talking to the judge had no problems with admitting to taking part in the beheadings. The defendant, Hasanuddin, goes by only the one name - delusions of being Bono, anyone? "I was indeed involved in the beheadings", he declared.
No, his problem lies in being understood, or rather, misunderstood. The good Hasanuddin was concerned that the court should understand his noble personality. "We are not cold-blooded killers", he affirmed. It's just that he felt authorities were failing to take appropriate action to avenge the deaths of Muslims.
With such blatant disregard for human life being flaunted, with such callous and uncaring cold being aimed at children, I damn well lose sight of the great one's words and begin getting all kinds of ideas for the sentence I would like to see handed down to these animals. Can I share the one I like best?
I imagine it would hold true of the victims' parents, that they are not cold-blooded killers either, so of course, I don't imagine they would want to impose the death penalty. I think a fitting alternative might be to let the bereaved families dictate which body parts should be lopped off of these warm and caring cutthroats. Maybe a couple of judicious swipes with a machete could result in three warmer, gentler hatchet men. A couple of well-placed amputations could help them view the world and their place in it in a whole new light. In order to assure them that none of this was being done without the very best of intentions, perhaps they could be given the say as to where their dismembered parts would be placed.
I am sorry, oh great soul.
1 Comments:
Somehow, I don't think there's punishment befitting those three that would cast a new perspective on their world view. In cases such as this one, prudence should be practiced on behalf of society. The quicker, the swifter and the more lethal the justice that is accorded them, the better it is for society.
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