one country's laws

so today this morning, the australian guy who had attempted to traffick heroin into Singapore was hanged. cue public outcry over the so called harsh sentence of capital punishment from Down Under.

except, it seems, the only noise coming out against his sentence in the past few weeks have only originated from some politicians who obviously view this as an excellent opportunity to raise their profile. because of our strict stand on drugs, and the usage of capital punishment, we have been labelled as a "rogue chinese port city". i'm amused by the politician who called Singapore that. obviously, he doesnt hold a high regard for his neighbouring countries. and i'm thinking that there may be a racist context in his outburst. ok, that was just a figment of my imagination.

anyone in this region that we live in will know that, while the chinese account for more than half of the population in Singapore, this country's native race is actually the malays. and it struck me somewhat, that ever since China's prominent rise in economic levels, there has been a frequent usage of the terms "rogue chinese". you read about it in Tom Clancy's novels. you hear about it whenever China refuses to bend over to the US. but i'm getting a little off topic here.


back to where i started. there has been a lot of letters published in newspapers from normal ordinary Aussies, stating the exact opposite from what those politicians have been saying. a survey done also showed that Aussies stand by Singapore's decision to hang the drug trafficker. so anyone catching something here? i'll leave it at that.


and since when does any country have any right to interfere in another country's internal affairs? i'm not counting USA here, 'cos they think because of their economic and military powers, they are above judgement. i may be a bit harsh on americans here, but i'm only directing my comments about USA at the chimp who's sitting in the White House now. but back to the topic here. so an Aussie is about to be hanged for trafficking drugs. so Australia apparently does not like the death penalty. but the crime happened in Singapore, thus the guy's under our jurisdiction. the political reaction is akin to one of a over protective mother trying to protect and deflect the blame from her spoiled child who's a bit too old to be mommy's boy and ought to know better. the child did wrong, he knew what he did, he knew it was wrong, yet he did it. now the mom's trying to say it isnt his fault, he doesnt know what he was doing, he had no choice, blah blah blah. weak argument isnt it?


so now, just because we are small, apparently insignificant, we are deemed to be easily bullied. thus, we get insults and threats thrown at us everytime some other country's citizen breaks a law here and is punished by our laws. anyone remember Micheal Fay in the mid-90s about his vandalism case? huge outroar over in the States, with insults of being "barbarians", "unciviliased", etc thrown in our direction. in the end, the guy still got caned, but he was embraced back in his homeland. years down the line, USA thanks and praises Singapore for its aid to various disasters.


so we get insulted, threatened, and worse, and yet whenever others need help, we're the first ones there. frankly, i'm sick of this policy. for all the good work we do, it just takes one stupid case like this and suddenly, everyone forgets what good we've done and we become another barbaric/rogue state.

thankfully though, at least normal people think differently from politicians MOST of the time. in my opinion, there is no good politicians. politicians lack three things; common sense, honesty and integrity.