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| A big hello to all my Australian fans | |
Chief Bali bomber suspect, identified only as Amrozi, smiled and laughed during
a police interrogation in Indonesia while admitting
his part in the massacre of some 170 people. This should come as no surprise to
anyone - psychopaths are without conscience, and therefore without remorse -
though apparently they often enjoy the public spot-light. What did surprise people is the circumstances of the interrogation. Amrozi was
not interviewed by the head of the Bombing investigation, but by Indonesia's
top policeman, in a bizarre media event. The official line was that the
authorities were determined to show that they were not mistreating their
suspect. Far from it in fact - police chatted with him and laughed at his
jokes. Everyone has their 15 minutes of fame, and the Indonesian police were obviously
keen to take full advantage of theirs. At one point all the police present
gathered around for a photo. The police can be seen gathered around the
suspect smiling for their group photo. All cultures have their
own ways of coping with grief, but this is very different to the Western norms. Australian victims and their
families were clearly quite distressed by it. With Indonesia criticizing Australia's raids on suspected Muslim fundamentalists,
Indonesia is clearly being far kinder to theirs. Even to their mass-murderers. And Indonesia's traditional reluctance to take action against those who
commit atrocities? Maybe they will dismiss this as a cultural misunderstanding,
or maybe he will get the death penalty - depending on political whim in one of the
most corrupt nations on the planet. But as those Australians anxious to make us a multicultural society would remind us, we
have an obligation to
respect the way they do things. Apparently though, the obligation is not
reciprocated.
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