Since Joko Widodo came to power six months ago, 14 people on death row have been executed and he has more in his sights. In the 15 years before he came to power, 27 people - most of them convicted murderers - were put to death. Two a year on average. And in six months, Widodo's body count is 14 and climbing.
I think the death penalty is barbaric. Whatever the means, firing squad, injection, stoning, hanging, it's a vengeful, violent, cruel way to administer justice. But I found the hyperbole and mawkish emotion from Australian media and celebs over the deaths of Chan and Sukumaran completely over the top. One newspaper described them as "The young men who could be anyone's sons".
Then there was the video of Australian actors exhorting Tony Abbott to show some balls and "bring these boys home" - #saveourboys. Bloody hell. Just as well Chan and Sukumaran hadn't converted to Catholicism while they were in prison or the luvvies would have been pressuring Pope Francis to have them canonised.
But these two men were greedy wannabe gangstas who wanted a fast track to the high life. They thought they could do that through drug smuggling. They weren't hapless, drug-addicted mules. They were the organisers of an ill-fated smuggling expedition. They knew the penalty. They took a chance. They got caught. And they paid the price.
Hopefully, their brutal deaths will be a deterrent to other baby gangstas looking to make a quick buck. If one young man decides the risks simply aren't worth it, then Chan and Sukumaran won't have died in vain.
Last week, I wrote (at the editor's behest, I might add) about PonytailGate. I likened hair-pulling to the sort of thing 6 and 7-year-old boys do "because they are too socially retarded to understand how to initiate a friendship with a young girl".
After it was published, I received a Facebook message from a lovely woman who (very politely) said she was shocked I'd used the word retarded. I also received a tweet from someone who said he hated to be "that guy" but "using retarded in a national newspaper is pretty poor form. Language matters."
I quite agree. Had I written John Key's actions in pulling a waitress' hair were retarded, that would be wrong. But I didn't. I said his actions were like those of a socially retarded 6-year-old. There's a big difference. Retarded had a specific meaning before it was colonised by some people and used as a weapon.
Although it has been appropriated by small-minded individuals as an insult, it hasn't lost its original meaning. It's like the word gay. That, too, has been appropriated and its meaning has morphed.
Language adapts and evolves. But once a word has been seized and held hostage by the baddies, does that mean the rest of us can no longer use it as it was meant to be used?
Using the term socially retarded was never meant to be an insult to anyone with a mental disability and I still consider it accurate in the context. However, because I accept retarded has devolved into a word that causes other people pain, I will use "socially inept" next time.
But I would love it if we could reclaim words that have been fashioned into insults by the small-minded and put them back into the lexicon to be used as they were intended.
