Bali Bombers
I understand the execution of the Bali Bombers, as these men are collectively known, and the reactions to their crimes, trial, sentence, and deaths. It’s Indonesia’s right to manage its judicial system and to impose capital punishment, but I take no satisfaction in these executions, even while I can sympathize with those, due to their own involvement or that of their families, as victims, who do. But capital punishment is less satisfying to me than would be the conversion of these men from fanatics into having an understanding of what their actions really did, both in the direct harm to the people killed and injured and their families, Australian and Balinese, and to those who see their deaths are martyrdom, who are themselves radicalized, a more lasting damage. I’m glad they’re gone, but I pity us all, knowing that there are still those who think a car bomb, a suicide bomb, a gun, a grenade, a war are ever really legitimate options for redress.