Used by All and Sundry

Pic courtesy South China Morning Post

I wonder how you, gentle reader, see the two members of the Bali Nine slated for execution.

I see them as two young men who made a stupid mistake years ago, before their adolescent brains had settled down to something approaching maturity. Any males who have never done anything stupid in the throes of adolescence may read no further.

It’s well known, incidentally, that adolescence persists well into the twenties for some men.

Smuggling dangerous drugs is about as anti-social as you can get. It doesn’t however earn the death penalty in most jurisdictions, except in a number of countries in SE Asia.

OK, I see them as recovered (and apparently rehabilitated) ex-adolescents.

It’s interesting to consider how a few other notables regard them, based on current and previous behaviour.

Let’s start with Abbott and Shorten. It‘s pretty obvious that these two see them as opportunities to swing the polls. It seems to be working for at least one of them.

Then there’s Widodo Frankly, he is operating from the same frame of reference as his Australian counterparts. They don’t seem to run polls routinely in Indonesia, so I’m not sure how his popularity is responding. If you know, tell me.

The Indonesian police and military see the situation as a great rationale for playing with their most expensive toys, including their Sukhois.There are also opportunities for selfies.

As for the death penalty - put simply - it doesn’t work. There’s no correlation between capital punishment and deterrence.

If the Indonesians were fair dinkum about tackling drug importers, they'd start with dealing with corruption in their police and military.

So we’re left with a media spectacle. These guys are being used in the most despicable manner.