The other day I witnessed, totally by accident a beheading. I haven't written for a few days on here because I really didn't feel like it. My head has been in a bit of a spin as I have tried to come to terms with what I witnessed. Though due to my past career choices I have actually seen and dissected former living persons I have never actually seen somebody cease to function before my very eyes...let alone at the hands of somebody else still living.
I was out shopping for bits and pieces (including the sim card) when I saw a group of people mingling around the entrance to the huge mosque in the old town. I decided t go over and try to get some photographs. The next few moments I will not describe as I certainly don't feel ready to go into huge detail about it. Suffice to say that as a result of the former 2 minutes I vomited and passed out. I came round surrounded by well meaning people offering me water and taxis. I ended up sharing a taxi back to my hotel with an Australian chap who works for The Guardian and had been following the story of the young man who had just had his head cleaved cleanly from his body and then stitched back on by a waiting doctor before being neatly carted away by two small Chinese looking chaps in Yellow boiler suits. He had been accused of rape, drug trafficking and taking drugs and found guilty without a formal open trial. He was allowed no form of legal defense and his consular was not informed of his execution until after he had been dispatched.
Now, for me the first two crimes on the list would satisfy me that they deserve the death sentence. After all, the way in which the prisoner was deleted was with very little fuss and ceremony. I find the American gas chamber, the electric chair or lethal injection even more barbaric in some ways. (Especially as America claims to have supreme dibs on civilization and democracy (and yet is still infected with religious hypocrisy)). An American death row tenant is normally wheeled out whenever some adulterous crooked ponce requires votes and the sick twisted legal process is played out and the Christians begin to rub their hands together in glee at the prospect of sending another non-believer to hell.
The part that doesn't sit well with me is that he had no defense and his court was made up of religious zealots, who basically work under the guise that they shouldn't think too deeply about the case or they may be perceived as taking the judgment side of things away from God and therefore putting themselves at the gates of Hell. That's a particularly wise move and is all 'fair and well'..if..if...if there really is a God and if there IS one. that he is a JUST and FAIR one. (after all isnt that the American way too? Kill them all and let God sort them out?
I will refrain from giving my own opinion on the matter, suffice to say that after a few days mediation on the matter, I feel no more uncomfortable about capital punishment here than I do in the USA. There were no jeering crowds here or placards written by nasty Christians, just solemn observance and the fear of other people's Gods and their followers. I was reminded that that the most powerful nation on the planet and the richest one both claim to represent (albeit a different) God, but both have the power to take life based on their personal beliefs and therefore make life appear very cheap indeed. (Not something that either of their Gods appear to endorse in either of their scriptures).
There's nothing left but faith?
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