It's a grey and miserable day in Melbourne. Dorian's trying to light the fire, but generally we really need to do something about the heating in this house - but that's just part of the huge renovation plans that we have. Walls need to be knocked down, chicken coops built, doors punched through and benches put in. But not just yet... la la.
Spent part of the day editing tomorrow's Accent of Women show, which will be on Burmese refugees in Malaysia. SOund quality is quite poor (need to get CIJ to invest in some new cables!), but the subject matter is important, so I hope listeners will bear with it. Sigh. The following week will be on 'dual loyalty' and the medical profession - of interest to those who might be interested in the ethical responsibilities of doctors in the light of the Kugan case. But you'll have to wait till next week :).
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Getting personal
As this blog was originally meant to talk about me, not about politics...
Have just got back to Melbourne, and think that (like the last one) this long-haul flight has left me ill. My nose is blocked and I've slept about 15 hours in the last 24. And we have mice in the kitchen. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this - the stupid cats are not remotely earning their keep. Must get rid of them. Soon. Before little Ibra gets here - hope to visit her this afternoon, but see how I'm feeling.
Of course, not talking about politics means that the post is really short....
Have just got back to Melbourne, and think that (like the last one) this long-haul flight has left me ill. My nose is blocked and I've slept about 15 hours in the last 24. And we have mice in the kitchen. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this - the stupid cats are not remotely earning their keep. Must get rid of them. Soon. Before little Ibra gets here - hope to visit her this afternoon, but see how I'm feeling.
Of course, not talking about politics means that the post is really short....
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
More on Kugan...
The last post was written before I read the reports on the second post-mortem. Having attended the inquests of previous youths who died in police detention, I feel ill. Repeatedly, families were denied the right to an independent post-mortem, and there was strong suspicion why, but because there was nothing but suspicion, because there wasn't the public outcry, the deaths just kept piling up, at the rate of almost two a week at one stage. And nothing happened.
It's good that this has finally come out. It's tragic, shameful and disgusting that so many young men died before even this much of the truth could be known.
It's good that this has finally come out. It's tragic, shameful and disgusting that so many young men died before even this much of the truth could be known.
The problem with Kugan....
Now, please bear with me on this post. I want to play a little mind-game that a lot of people may find unpleasant and somehow intrinsically wrong.
Let us just imagine that A Kugan was indeed a car thief. Let's go one further and make him the car hijacker of the urbanite nightmare - after all in previous inquests, there have been serious attempts made (however irrelevant) to establish that the deceased was in fact a criminal. So let's pretend that he was a criminal.
Does his death in custody deliver justice to his traumatised victims, held up in their own cars with a knife or a gun, forced to climb out of their cars after harassment, and left at the side of the road, no phone, no money, no vehicle?
I would argue, forcibly, that it doesn't. Instead, I would be doubly traumatised because - with good reason - Mr Kugan has become a hero. He has become a victim. In some way, he has usurped the position of his victims.
And even if this hadn't happened, even if he had not been made a hero - there is no process here. Part of the point of the courts of law is that justice is not only done, but is seen to be done. The victim gets to feel the satisfaction that the perpetrator has had adequate chance to defend themselves (more than the victim had), but has been found guilty by the state. Publicly and generally incontestably. It may not bring the car back, it may not appease the trauma but it reinforces faith in the country's institutions, at the very least.
Any victims of a person who dies in custody are denied this cathartic process. They are denied justice, and become, once again, victims.
This isn't good for anybody... the police, the judiciary, the victim of crime, or even the perpetrator.
As it is, Kugan (like many before him) died an innocent man - just as all are innocent until proven guilty.
Let us just imagine that A Kugan was indeed a car thief. Let's go one further and make him the car hijacker of the urbanite nightmare - after all in previous inquests, there have been serious attempts made (however irrelevant) to establish that the deceased was in fact a criminal. So let's pretend that he was a criminal.
Does his death in custody deliver justice to his traumatised victims, held up in their own cars with a knife or a gun, forced to climb out of their cars after harassment, and left at the side of the road, no phone, no money, no vehicle?
I would argue, forcibly, that it doesn't. Instead, I would be doubly traumatised because - with good reason - Mr Kugan has become a hero. He has become a victim. In some way, he has usurped the position of his victims.
And even if this hadn't happened, even if he had not been made a hero - there is no process here. Part of the point of the courts of law is that justice is not only done, but is seen to be done. The victim gets to feel the satisfaction that the perpetrator has had adequate chance to defend themselves (more than the victim had), but has been found guilty by the state. Publicly and generally incontestably. It may not bring the car back, it may not appease the trauma but it reinforces faith in the country's institutions, at the very least.
Any victims of a person who dies in custody are denied this cathartic process. They are denied justice, and become, once again, victims.
This isn't good for anybody... the police, the judiciary, the victim of crime, or even the perpetrator.
As it is, Kugan (like many before him) died an innocent man - just as all are innocent until proven guilty.
Saturday, 28 February 2009
A little nakedness...
It's been a while since I posted, and this is meant to be a blog for keeping in touch with friends and family while I'm in Oz so it's a little ironic that my first post in almost a year is the day (pretty much) that I touch down in KL.
Yesterday, I was looking through blogs and such, and caught my first sight of one of the supposedly scandalous pictures of Eli Wong. It was far from scandalous, but what really caught my notice was that this picture was of her sleeping with her glasses on. Now, perhaps this wasn't one of *the* pix, but one concocted from various shots online or somesuch. But I can reveal that I am in a somewhat privileged position. Because I'm quite sure, that Ms Wong does not sleep with her glasses on.
The reason I know this is because I, like many others, have been in a position to violate Ms Wong's trust and confidence in us, and creep into her bedroom late at night and take photos of her. Had it been my whim to do so. Eli Wong is a generous person. Not only have I taken advantage of her hospitality on so many occasions that at one stage she had a bed permanently set up for me, but I know many, many others who have also done so. Journalists from Indonesia, human rights workers from all over the globe, environmentalists, musicians... Eli and her housemates would welcome people into their home and onto their sofas. This is in the best tradition of all major religions, particularly Islam - the granting of hospitality to guests and weary travellers.
Of course, to my knowledge, none of these guests violated the reverse of that hospitality, invading Eli's private space. Not because of locks and keys (though there may well have been such, I never rattled at her doorknob), but because it's just rude, discourteous.
The point is, in this age of mobile phones and pinhead cameras, the only way to ensure your privacy is to lock yourself up. The most chaste woman, who piously provides a stranger with a glass of water and the use of her facilities, could find herself at the stranger's mercy, after he/ she installs a tiny video cam in her toilet. What do we do? We could decide that we all take after the people in 'The Machine Stops', live in little cubicles and never coming into contact with another human being.
Or we could be rational about it. Say, these things happen. How can we help the victims of this crime and discourage the perpetrators?
A lesson from Australia might be pertinent here. Around the same time the Hilmi Malek scandal broke (perhaps this would be a start, naming scandals after supposed perpetrators rather than victims), there was a story in a Sunday paper. A man had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempted blackmail, of AUD15,000. He had slept with a married politician, who has children, who he had picked up at an Internet chat site.
The court would not allow the politician's name to be mentioned in open session. And the blackmailer is banned from ever saying the man's name, even to his family. The issue of the anonymous politician's morality never arises - nobody knows who he is. It's possible that his wife discovered the truth - it would have been hard to keep such an affair secret, but generally the blackmailer was punished, the victim left to leave his life as he had before, though hopefully with more concern for the welfare of his wife and children.
Yesterday, I was looking through blogs and such, and caught my first sight of one of the supposedly scandalous pictures of Eli Wong. It was far from scandalous, but what really caught my notice was that this picture was of her sleeping with her glasses on. Now, perhaps this wasn't one of *the* pix, but one concocted from various shots online or somesuch. But I can reveal that I am in a somewhat privileged position. Because I'm quite sure, that Ms Wong does not sleep with her glasses on.
The reason I know this is because I, like many others, have been in a position to violate Ms Wong's trust and confidence in us, and creep into her bedroom late at night and take photos of her. Had it been my whim to do so. Eli Wong is a generous person. Not only have I taken advantage of her hospitality on so many occasions that at one stage she had a bed permanently set up for me, but I know many, many others who have also done so. Journalists from Indonesia, human rights workers from all over the globe, environmentalists, musicians... Eli and her housemates would welcome people into their home and onto their sofas. This is in the best tradition of all major religions, particularly Islam - the granting of hospitality to guests and weary travellers.
Of course, to my knowledge, none of these guests violated the reverse of that hospitality, invading Eli's private space. Not because of locks and keys (though there may well have been such, I never rattled at her doorknob), but because it's just rude, discourteous.
The point is, in this age of mobile phones and pinhead cameras, the only way to ensure your privacy is to lock yourself up. The most chaste woman, who piously provides a stranger with a glass of water and the use of her facilities, could find herself at the stranger's mercy, after he/ she installs a tiny video cam in her toilet. What do we do? We could decide that we all take after the people in 'The Machine Stops', live in little cubicles and never coming into contact with another human being.
Or we could be rational about it. Say, these things happen. How can we help the victims of this crime and discourage the perpetrators?
A lesson from Australia might be pertinent here. Around the same time the Hilmi Malek scandal broke (perhaps this would be a start, naming scandals after supposed perpetrators rather than victims), there was a story in a Sunday paper. A man had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempted blackmail, of AUD15,000. He had slept with a married politician, who has children, who he had picked up at an Internet chat site.
The court would not allow the politician's name to be mentioned in open session. And the blackmailer is banned from ever saying the man's name, even to his family. The issue of the anonymous politician's morality never arises - nobody knows who he is. It's possible that his wife discovered the truth - it would have been hard to keep such an affair secret, but generally the blackmailer was punished, the victim left to leave his life as he had before, though hopefully with more concern for the welfare of his wife and children.
Friday, 30 May 2008
Death by law
I'm rather suprised at the chorus of outrage and disbelief that has greeted the vicious attack on Chang Jiun Haur. Not that outrage isn't the right response for what happened. Even when attacked, it is the responsibility of the police to uphold the law. That means using minimal violence, sufficient to restrain, no more. There is no possible way that the police can claim the use of legitimate violence. The ludicrous attempt to claim that the four occupants of the car were involved in 'attempted murder' is just that - ludicrous.
What suprises me is the disbelief, the suprise that our police officers could be capable of such brutality. The disbelief has to be the result of a fairly wilful refusal to look and see what our officers (or some of our officers, let's not forget that there are good cops, and that they have a difficult time) have been doing for some time.
Even if we forget the 'small fry', the obviously overlookable detritus of society that we seem to think can be deprived of human rights because they are foreign or because they are poor, there are plenty of high profile cases that should have warned us of the nature of our cops. Top of the list, of course, is that a convicted thug was head of the police force for five years. Lest we forget, the judge who read out the conviction said "His action was inhuman. This is the worst act of indiscipline". He got a grand total of two months' imprisonment - and after his release, there were a slew of sympathetic news stories about how he was a 'broken' man.
Police officers have testified that they have seen other officers with detainees who were naked, and thought nothing of it (the officer in question was later found guilty of rape). There have been students, doctors and engineers who have complained of police brutality. At public assemblies, police have repeatedly been found guilty by the Human Rights Commission of using excessive force. Yet I can think of not a single incident where a police officer was charged.
Is it that suprising that the police behave with impunity? Is it that suprising that they think they can assault a young man and get away with it? Why should this case be any different?
What suprises me is the disbelief, the suprise that our police officers could be capable of such brutality. The disbelief has to be the result of a fairly wilful refusal to look and see what our officers (or some of our officers, let's not forget that there are good cops, and that they have a difficult time) have been doing for some time.
Even if we forget the 'small fry', the obviously overlookable detritus of society that we seem to think can be deprived of human rights because they are foreign or because they are poor, there are plenty of high profile cases that should have warned us of the nature of our cops. Top of the list, of course, is that a convicted thug was head of the police force for five years. Lest we forget, the judge who read out the conviction said "His action was inhuman. This is the worst act of indiscipline". He got a grand total of two months' imprisonment - and after his release, there were a slew of sympathetic news stories about how he was a 'broken' man.
Police officers have testified that they have seen other officers with detainees who were naked, and thought nothing of it (the officer in question was later found guilty of rape). There have been students, doctors and engineers who have complained of police brutality. At public assemblies, police have repeatedly been found guilty by the Human Rights Commission of using excessive force. Yet I can think of not a single incident where a police officer was charged.
Is it that suprising that the police behave with impunity? Is it that suprising that they think they can assault a young man and get away with it? Why should this case be any different?
Thursday, 22 May 2008
The real world
Apologies for the long hiatus. I think I was getting unemployment blues, falling ill to every small germ that I perceived to be hanging around. These blues no longer linger. I am, once more, an officially productive member of society. I am working in basically, a call centre. While the work was quite interesting for the first few days, it is excrutiatingly dull now - largely because the sector I'm working for had been inundated with work, so went overboard and employed three casual workers where one was necessary.
It is, however, interesting in some ways to be at the bottom of the employment pile (in terms of office employment). The assumption is, of course, that I have barely scraped through secondary education, and am bereft of any intelligence. There are people who treat you as barely human, those who feel that it isn't worth wasting their time on you (to be fair, probably the category I fall into in the reverse situation) and the few who judge you on how they find you. And it seems to be that the higher up the pecking order, the more likely you are to judge on ability, not appearance - the most judgemental of all being one of my 'equals'.
Hm. Maybe I'm just bitching.... but I'm generally really glad to be back at work. All that stuff that lefties spout about ppl, generally, wanting to work has a fairly solid basis!
Stiiiillll, if anyone knows anyone who can offer me job in academia, I'd be very grateful!
It is, however, interesting in some ways to be at the bottom of the employment pile (in terms of office employment). The assumption is, of course, that I have barely scraped through secondary education, and am bereft of any intelligence. There are people who treat you as barely human, those who feel that it isn't worth wasting their time on you (to be fair, probably the category I fall into in the reverse situation) and the few who judge you on how they find you. And it seems to be that the higher up the pecking order, the more likely you are to judge on ability, not appearance - the most judgemental of all being one of my 'equals'.
Hm. Maybe I'm just bitching.... but I'm generally really glad to be back at work. All that stuff that lefties spout about ppl, generally, wanting to work has a fairly solid basis!
Stiiiillll, if anyone knows anyone who can offer me job in academia, I'd be very grateful!
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