Lesson Learnt? The Demise of the Bali 9 Duo

The Bali 9 saga is now almost done and dusted. The two Australians involved were finally executed after extended periods of appeal and pledge for clemency. There are outcries internationally over the treatment of the case and Indonesia is defiant of condemnations thrown at it.

It is sad that the whole situation came down to this. I tried to avoid making comments on this as it is something that truly divides humanity. The fundamental issue here is that these people did commit a death inducing crime in Indonesia. It is written in the constitution that drug crimes attract death penalty. So I assume most people in this drug smuggling business know about it. But then if that is still something they are willing to risk their lives for, then it is something they need to own up to. This does not mean I agreed to death penalty as I personally do not think a life for another life or basically public execution would improve humanity at all. But at the same time I cannot say Indonesian law is backward because I think they know much better than the rest of the world the havoc drugs wrecked in the country.

Much effort was made to save these two young men’s life in the past couple of years. They also seemed to be repentant and turned over to a new leaf. Their transformation is a marvellous story indicating how extreme situation could help changing someone’s world view and taking a different turn for their lives. At the end we lost two repented convicts who could eventually do great to help the society but I do think they understand they have to own up to their actions. Clemency is at the mercy of others and whether they are being granted has no logistic relation to anything. However, there were certain things that I think we should look into about the whole case.

First of all, it was the Australian Federal Police who tipped off about these boys, and eventually led to their arrest. It was a concerted effort to stop drug trafficking. However, I do not know whether there were sufficient thoughts about the fate of these two smugglers when the police decided to tip the Indonesian government off. As I understood in 2010 the clause of considering Australia’s opposition on death penalty was included in the international cooperation agreements. But then in 2014 the Liberal Government removed it. I do not know whether it is because it was introduced by the Labor Government that the Liberals felt compelled to remove it or it was actually due to operational logistic issues. In this case, if we consider the fate facing these two smugglers once they are arrested in Indonesia, would the police consider proposing to intercept these two Australians at Australian ports to save them from this agony? If so the whole picture would be different but then at the same time we might not have two repented convicts that we now moan about.

The other issue was how the international relationship was being handled in the whole case.  As all these pleas were going on, we just came off some diplomatic hiccups with Indonesia including the hacking “scandal” against Indonesia. The Australian Government was defiant and considered itself has every right to do so for national security. Indonesia was furious. Then came the asylum seeker issue where boats were towed back to the open sea to “stop the boats”. Indonesia was against it and considered it as violating human rights and so did the United Nations, but the Australian Government claimed within every right to do so to deliver its promise to the voters. It even went further to decry or attack anything that the United Nations said or any organisations that opposed to their approaches. Further we had Tony Abbott claiming rights for clemency based on the international aid Australia gave to Indonesia during the tsunami. This triggered a fund raising campaign in Indonesia to give the money back to Australia. With all these issues hovering around diplomatic efforts Julia Bishop trying to achieve, I am not surprised the Indonesia Government would use this as a face off opportunity to tear the all “self-proclaimed almighty Australian Government” down.  This is definitely good for the Indonesian Government to show its people that this Government would not subject to finger pointing of foreign powers, which is exactly what the Australian Government was doing in the past year and a half. The most disappointing part is that when Tony Abbott first got elected he mentioned changing focus from Geneva to Asia (or something like that) but then his version of Asia is just brown nosing China and neglecting others.  I could be wrong but then people can only be judged by their deeds.

Lastly I think we need to think about when we are condemning others for non-humanitarian deeds, are we fit to judge? Australia does not have a good history with humanitarian effort even nowadays just looking at its approach to “stop the boats”, how they run the offshore centres, and how they treat the Indigenous people. With all these brilliant track records is the Liberal Government actually qualified to decry other people’s behaviours? Or it is only making itself as big as a clown with a series of bad acts? If they do believe Christianity is more supreme than Islam, where are the truly Christian acts that could avoid even accomplished professionals to be converted into extremists? Before we go out all offensive on others maybe it is a good time to think about what is tearing the country apart inside first. As usual are we seeing the pecks in other people’s eyes without seeing the logs in ours?

It has been a long journey for the Bali 9 duo but it has finally come to a sad end. I wish everyone learnt something from this but judging from what is happening in the media and the Government right now I doubt that would happen.  We would even have one of the commercial channels adapting this tragedy into a miniseries to cash in under the disguise of “telling the true story” while the so-called current affair programs continue to cash in with sensational interviews and programming. It is sad, but it seems to be the world we are living in now.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Without a doubt the latest Avengers movie is one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year. With the success of the last movie it is just the Hollywood way to make a sequel out of it. Joss Whedon is back at the helm of the sequel and with his success both story and production wise in the first outing the stake is pretty high for him. He even mentioned the sequel nearly killed him. So with that much blood and sweat put into the production, how did the final product stack up?

Sequels are hard, especially for sequels of successful franchises. Avengers: Age of Ultron has a lot to deliver: continued progression of characters established in the previous and other movies, the continuation of the Marvel Universe storyline, the introduction of new characters and the balance of the all the star acts with both existing and new cast members. From this point of view I think Joss Whedon delivered. It is no easy task but he managed. All characters have their own storylines developed further but what I appreciate in this movie is that characters that do not have their own franchises actually get more air time. The storylines related to Hawkeye, Black Widow and Hulk provided a much needed glimpse to their characters. Yes Hulk had two previous movies already but come on who would consider them as successful character building for Hulk? Joss Whedon managed to explore the dilemmas and yearnings for Bruce Banner and “The Big Guy” and the storyline between Bruce and Natasha was a nice one. And without a doubt Mark Ruffalo and Scarlet Johansson shined in this storyline. We also had a glimpse of Hawkeye this time whom in the last movie was nothing but a total support character tagging along with the group.

Age of Ultron introduced two new members Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Putting aside that Quicksilver is played by a different actor this time round (due to license restrictions with the existing Fox rights to the X-men universe) the Maximoff twins were quite a standout due to their completely different powers as mutants. As Maria Hill put it, “He is fast and she is weird” pretty much sums them up and put them on different radar as compared to the rest of the group. The fact that they could outwit most of the established superheroes was an indication how their power was on a different level. Also for the first time, after many films in the Marvel Universe, Paul Bettany moved from voice acting to character acting and he did not disappoint. I don’t know whether casting him early on in the franchise was a vision for his development in this film or not but that was a perfect casting choice in my opinion.

Since it is still a Joss Whedon movie, you could expect all the wit and funny lines weaved in between all the over the top actions. Sometimes I do feel how could Earth ever recover from all the havoc wrecked over the course of the last few Marvel movies? I mean there were like tons of damage to Earth. Unless there is a superhero among them to recover and rebuild with its super power, I don’t know how much of Earth is left for them to chip away in every single movie or whether there would actually be an Earth to save. Maybe it is not that much of any issue for Thor as he lives somewhere else and Earth seems like a summer house for some actions from time to time, but I feel bad for those who have nowhere to go. Having said that, Age of Ultron has some of the most spectacular action sequences you could see in recent years. The fact that Joss Whedon could cramp in all the super powers of all the super heroes and super villains while addressing the super technologies of S.H.I.E.L.D without compromising any aspect of them is just amazing. I think this shows the director really understands the franchise and the comics. There are lots of adjustments in terms of storylines and relationships in the movie as compared to the comics but none of them compromised the integrity of the world established by the comics, which I think shows the strengths of the director and producer a lot.

Age of Ultron is not without issues. It is after all a Hollywood movie so you could see clear traces of Hollywood formula in story building, which in my opinion is a bit too predictable now. Also certain developments seemed to be restricted by or affected by IP and contractual agreements thus taxing the movie’s ability to deliver its full potential, which in my opinion is a pity. Because of this, it put a road block on the movie to achieve greater success as a piece of artwork. However, none of this should discredit the work Joss Whedon had incredibly achieved. Age of Ultron is a movie that you could go in and watch it again and could still enjoy it all over again even though you know what is coming. I enjoyed every single scene of this tightly knitted story delivered by a superb cast completed with some extraordinary special effects and action sequences.

The next two movies will not be helmed by Joss Whedon so I do not envy the person who took up the rein but for the time being just enjoy what is on offer and don’t think about it too much. After all overthinking is not what super heroes do.

When Our Faith is Fading

Easter had come and gone. I immensely enjoyed the 4 days off catching up with my gaming. However, Easter itself is not about day offs, gaming or penalty rates. It is a major establishment in the Christian faith. A faith a majority of western countries were built upon. It is about self-sacrifice for the better of the world. And it is this self-sacrifice of the Son of God that brought people together in the most loving and forgiving manner. However, with the recent rise of the Islamic States and the increasing fear against the threat Islam is posing on western lifestyle, I can’t help but think why a faith with such a grand gesture is failing?

Brought up in the Anglican Christian faith I believe in a lot of good things the faith was about – love, forgiveness and sacrifices (although I am not big about that…call me a selfish prick). For me the faith is about caring, loving, and hopefully see the best of other people. However, in my opinion Christianity has nowadays lost it shiny coating and thus driving people away from its core believes. The issue is instead of asking why good people went to join the Islamic States and start killing other people in the name of religion, Christian leaders or Christians generally should ask the question of “what have they done wrong leading to their own downturn?”

The Bible forms the core of Christian faith and there are lots of goods in the Bible. However one thing we need to understand is the Bible we read, canon or not, is a collaboration and interpretation of human minds. Accounts in the Bible, whether you believe in them or not, were retold through humans’ eyes. Much had been done to make sure it is not bias and it reflects the core values of the faith. However, this does not stop people with agendas taking the scripture out of context to achieve their own means. And when they have such power to influence others, use them as a weapon against other people. For me Christian faith is a way to make sure you do good to the world and hopefully when you meet God at the Pearly Gates you were offered a seat at the table of the eternal of spiritual / gourmet buffet. Because there is so much on offer, essentially you want to offer this ticket to as many people as possible, especially your loved ones. This is where spreading the God’s words came from. However, it is also about how you spread the God’s words that matters. Personally I do not believe in condemnation. I mean how far would you get by consistently condemning other people of their lifestyles, or simply for who they are? For me this kind of actions are like you walk past a facial product counter in the mall and the beautifully made up girl (or sometimes guy) came to you and tell you “Oh my god your skin is so bad but no worries I have this fabulous product that can improve your skin blah blah blah”. I will just get annoyed and walk away. In my opinion, there are a number of individuals or even churches making this mistake, and when being told they made a mistake, they would go even louder hoping that this could drown out their short comings as perceived by other people. But considering this, if God could use a prostitute and forgive her sins because she helped her messenger and Jesus had a constant record of sitting and dining with sinners, who are we to judge and condemn? Just remember that the Apostle Paul was once a sinner and persecutor too. Are we just seeing the peck in others but not the log in our eyes?

The other thing that I am particularly disappointed is the leaders of the western countries who proclaimed themselves as Christian but acted in every possible un-Christian way you could imagine to achieve their own agendas. Taking the Australian Prime Minister as an example, he claimed to be of Catholic background but then I wonder how many people could see a good Christian role model in him from his day to day behaviour? That is if calling your opponents a Nazi supporter when you don’t get your way, being double standard about Australian criminal overseas and asylum seekers to Australia, and bullying people whom you can bully because they have different opinions on your governing, are actually Christian way of life. Then probably he is a great role model. Also we have a lot of right wing or left wing politicians who called themselves Christians but then pursued issues in a frantic and aggressive manner for personal gains in politics. If that’s what Christian faith is about, I wonder why people are turned off.  They sure are no angels from God as I wonder how could you take flight just with your left or right wing? You will probably be falling to earth like a meteor impact and wait a second, what do we call those fallen angels in the Bible again?

Humanity is never straight forward, but faith – especially a good faith helps humanity to create hope in certain capacities. Certain people might not need it but for people who need it, it is supposed to be a means to a better personal life. And hopefully by exhibiting the radiance of your good life in your natural deeds, you influence other people to follow your faith.  I certainly do not agree to what the Islamic States is doing but then consider the Crusaders in the past, and how Australia was built in the first place, how much are we qualified to condemn others even as Christians? When we condemn people fighting for gay marriage equality as promoting a shameful lifestyle, are they actually promoting a lifestyle or they just want to be acknowledged as a day to day person in the society whom should be respected in the same way as everyone? If God can use a sinner like Saul and turned him into one of the most influential Apostles in history, who are we to say no and judge other people? For me instead of condemning radical Islamic activists and the Islamic States, maybe it is time to go through a real Christian self-examination and understand why they succeed and Christianity is failing in the western world.

There is an old Chinese saying – Examining and Improving Yourself, Caring and Loving Your Family, Governing Your State, Establishing Your World – this is a simple process that everyone should go through to make this world a better place –Christian or not.