The Real Loss

Today marks the day where one young man has lost his life. To many, that particular loss is justified. Principally, because it is to prove a point. A show of face. And to that same "majority", that has been interpreted as a sign of courage. Perhaps a demonstration of sensibility, rationality and justice to do the "right thing". For that man has been condemned as a deviant, an outsider, a criminal, and fortunately demands no respect or sympathy from us. That's how, in fact, this same "majority" expects all of us to treat people whom are labelled as that sort. So the loss of this person's life comes as no challenge to our conscience.

This man has lost more than that. He has lost the ability to live a fulfilling life, one that few of us take privilege of. He has lost the ability to experience the moments of joy, happiness, anger, anguish, sadness, and other indescrible human moments that we also have reasons to cherish. He has lost the experiencing these moments with his friends, family, peers and other fellow human beings that we probably stll have a lot to learn from. All of this has been stripped from him, because we have lost the priceless ability to judge our fellow human beings with some degree of humanity, but rather treated him like a statistic that will "save us all".

That's great reason, just as this man has passed away in a most "barbaric" manner (as described by the Attorney General in Australia, Phillip Ruddock), to reflect and introspect on our position in this situation. But it's also an indication of a prerogative, that has not always been demanded of us, to sit back and observe ourselves for who we really are, and how much of a more sincere and more cooperative society has been diminished due to our ignorance and our fears. The execution of Nguyen Tuong Van is, as blown up as it is, a microscopic event that has shown our fallability to fear campaigns and propaganda, and rather aptly eroded our better judgment and conscience.

I will not repeat the same points I made in my below article, but suffice to say, I wish to demolish a central claim that has been made about the death penalty acting as a deterrent to drug trafficking. What this claim asked us to implicitly assume is that behind every human being, there is a rational being who is taking a cost-benefit analysis to his/her everyday decision. That surely, death must be the most scary thing of all, and that the rational human being would construe no benefit that exceeds the spectre of death. This rather simplistic assumption is, naturally, the ethos of every public policy in Singapore, thus condensing all our complex psychosocial factors and phenomena into a robotic cog in a machine, who only knows how to make the rational cost-benefit analysis in his/her head. What this silly assumption has been truly done is to rationalize drug users/traffickers as well, ignoring that drug use is a multi-faceted complex social phenomeon, that goes beyond the benefit of "getting high", and actually requests that we "solve" this problem with more than just a rope, but with more indepth understanding of how do people come to take and transport drugs.

A researcher (whose work is as yet to be published, hence I can't cite) who has interviewed drug traffickers, came to the conclusion that 1) these people were mostly poorly-educated about the laws of drug trafficking 2) were in desperate situations that forced them to undertake this illegal activity, and 3) even if aware of the harsh penalties, had decided to continue with the activity for various reasons or factors (i.e. no other way to make money, threatened by the drug lords, etc). Does the person who perform acts of murder, arson, and other criminal activities perform the "cost-benefit" analysis before the commercement of the act? Does the suicide bomber who pulls the cord think rationally of his actions, or even care about the cost? In fact, do we, as normal human beings, always act as calculating robots in all of our decisions?

The death penalty, as a social practice (one that is interpreted symbolically but never supported empirically), is a dreadful practice that we would like to imagine "works". But it has never worked, except to strip our humanity and our ability to go beyond the retributive bias in our heads. Whatever the debate is between Singapore and Australia pro or anti death penalty supporters, one undeniable point is clear: to ask that someone be executed for a crime that is disproportionate to the act, to take away a person's life to construct a symbolic meaning but has no empirical utility, and to label someone with a stigma without understanding farther, only diminishes our humanity. Singaporeans, or Australians, who only imagine there is no alternative, have become almost identical to those "holy" men who engage in vicious, gratitious witch-burning in the past.

Singaporeans may gain a brief moment of relief that this man has been killed. They would also continue enjoying feeling "free" from the scourge of drugs. They may think they are protected, and that this state-sanctioned practice may affect them in only positive ways. But as they churn and turn in this mechanistic society of ours, as they continue bringing in the dough, either struggling to make ends' means or secure more financial stability, as they continue relatively unfazed in their every day, not in search for meaning and understanding but in unabridled pursuit for wealth and material goods, never have they thought that the loss of their compassion, reason, conscience and humanity is the most priceless thing of all.

This post is dedicated to Nguyen Tuong Van and his family and friends who have to contend with more than the loss of their son, brother and friend, but the loss of faith and trust in fellow man.