This is going to be a bit of an emotional rant.
A rant for an article I wrote recently about not wanting Nhaveen’s and Zulfarhan’s bullies to hang. I resent the notion some have about me writing a long-winded article for the sake of getting likes and engagement.
Because this is something I actually believe in deeply and wholeheartedly.
If I’m guilty of anything, it’s that I’m trying to use currently talked-about topic (i.e. the two cases) to make that point on a platform that enables me the voice to express these sentiments.
Because capital punishment is barbaric.
I could’ve built a whole article (or even two) around that.
But I hope that what I’ve actually said within that article itself expresses some notion as to why.
It doesn’t actually deter deadly crimes, and it emboldens more bloodlust in a society.
People who commit these crimes don’t have a sense of consequence. That whole sentiment that capital punishment will deter future extreme bullying is, pardon my french, absolute horsec*ck.
Are we as a species so secure in how we do things that we can presume to know when someone deserves to die?
I enjoy comics like Batman, but vigilante justice is not the way to do things.
There was a case earlier this year where a man was “vigilante-justiced” for allegedly molesting someone—even though his friends said that he simply walked into the wrong bathroom.
Which side is right? Well, we don’t know.
The dude was bludgeoned into a coma that led to his death before we could find out in the court of law.
“But what if this happened to YOUR family?”
Well then, I would hope that my principles on the matter would remain the same.
An eye for an eye is not justice. Even Martin Luther King Jr. said that “an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind”. And he was a black man in an era where black people in America faced intense oppression.
“Okay but if it happened to YOUR family though?”
Let’s take this sentiment to the extreme.
Should I then be empowered to start slinging guns and go all Rambo on the bullies’ asses?
Where next?
Their families, for raising them?
The schools’ management for letting this culture steep?
To many other Malaysian schools for their ineffective handling of bullying and ragging that led to today’s youth being so emboldened?
Our society, for demonising femininity in boys and for encouraging kids to take vengeance in their own hands?
How about the case of Flint, Michigan, where the people are falling ill because of rusting pipes that should never have been built out of lead?
Should they start going around assassinating all of the politicians who poured disease into their bodies?
Then to the developers of lead pipes?
How about all of the people in the know who kept mum about the whole thing until it was too late?
I’m not saying that those perpetrators shouldn’t be punished.
But if we let our emotions and carnal impulses take over our justice, where does it end?
We get a short-term release. But to what end?
I’m not a proponent for the death penalty. But if had to be meted out, then it should be for cases where the perpetrators are deemed beyond rehabilitation.
And, unpopular opinion here, but as far as I’m concerned, these alleged perpetrators are still not beyond amends or rehabilitation.
Cruel at that point in time? Yes. But not beyond rehabilitation.
I’m arguing for the perpetrators’ humanity here.
And you would argue that they didn’t treat the victims with the same humanity, and that’s a good point.
So are we going to stoop to their level?
Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock
