As someone whose own father was shot and almost killed by a couple of heroin junkies during an armed robbery attempt at the Sydney pub they managed in the late ’70s, it would be very easy for me to condemn the likes of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan. I don’t.
My parents woke up in their own beds in the small hours of the night to find two stocking-masked figures screaming at them to open the safe. One of the men was already beating Dad in the face with a pistol. Despite this, being a champion boxer in his youth and celebrated rugby player, Dad quickly overcame the man, and that’s when his buddy by the door let go with both barrels of a sawn-off shotgun. The first round hit his friend in the arm, all but taking it clean off. The second struck my father’s leg. The men staggered off down the hall, howling. Dad tried to get up and give pursuit, and that’s when his leg folded beneath him.
It was my sister who shook me awake that morning. “Wake up, Nicky. Dad’s been shot by robbers!” I didn’t believe her, so I ran downstairs and along the hallway to my parent’s bedroom. Past paramedics, photographers and police. Not one challenged me. I vividly remember walking into the room and not actually recognising it. It was as though someone had sprayed every surface – the walls, the windows, the ceiling, the floor, even the bed itself – this terrible bright, bright red. Eventually a detective spotted me staring with my mouth open, and cursing, he grabbed a young constable to usher me back down the hall.
Not once did I think for a single second that my Dad could actually die. If anything, the fact he’d been shot was somehow exciting. Impressive. Further proof of his unquestionable toughness. That’s how sheltered my existence had been. The mortality of my parents wasn’t something I had ever even considered. Their death was inconceivable to me.
Truth was, Dad very nearly did die. First from blood loss and shock in the ambulance. Then again on the operating table. And a third time from a golden staph infection – in fact, it was that strain of antibiotic-resistant super-bacteria that came closest to killing him. In the end, Dad pulled through. He became a favourite of the hospital nurses for his wit and good cheer. But while he regained full health, he was maimed and unable to bend his leg again. Perhaps saddest of all was that he would never play rugby after that.
As for the injured smackie, he was dumped at the lights outside the hospital a few hours later, while the other gunman was caught trying to leave for Thailand a couple of weeks after that. Both were already on parole for doing the same thing. Both were sentenced to 14 years and were out in less than four. Who knows whatever happened to them after that. Sometimes I fantasise of tracking them down and seeing if fate ever served them proper due, but I never have.
Heroin did that. The traffickers and dealers who sold it were just as responsible for what happened to my father as these desperate criminals needing money to score their next hit. There is no question this drug destroys multiple lives.
Nonetheless, I’m dismayed by some of the ignorant comments on Facebook and kneejerk bogan sentiment about what’s about to happen to Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan. Sure, it’s very easy to sit back at a remove and pass judgment on these two men as utterly deserving of their fate. Yet psychology will tell you can gain a remarkable insight into a person's personal ethics and degree of emotional intelligence by the level of empathy they display. For those callous enough to suggest that Myuran and Andrew (yes, they have names – they are human beings) have it coming, then I challenge you to listen to their friend Ben Quilty, the man who has campaigned tirelessly to save them, speak about the individuals they now are. To hear how desperate he is to stop his mate Myuran being riddled with bullets. To register the real tears in his voice.
And if that doesn't move you, imagine how it must be for their poor mothers. Or brothers. Or little sisters. Try and put yourself in their families' place – what if it were your dickhead brother who totally screwed up? Would you be so cavalier with another human life then?
Don’t simply trot out the same ol’ abhorrent justifications: "They were stupid. They knew the risks. They rolled the dice, fuck 'em..." Try to apply more logic. Could it be the stupid young men they once were thought they had a free pass through customs, like so many other drug traffickers so regularly do? Bribery and blind eyes are rife on those notoriously porous borders. Perhaps they were told they'd be waved right through like they were before. It’s certainly possible, isn’t it?
And lastly, if all that fails, if you still think, "Nah, let them have it - it sets an example to other traffickers", aside from all evidence pointing to the contrary about that flawed assumption of the drug trade, maybe ask yourself one more question: “Are YOU the same person you were ten years ago? Or are there any really stupid things you did that you’d NEVER EVER do again?” Because there are for me.
These two men, after over a decade in a third-world prison suffering skin disease, poor health, malnutrition and no doubt being exposed to countless acts of violence, have done their time, paid their penance and then some. They’ve learnt whatever lesson there is to about the destruction of drugs. And thanks to their own studies, efforts to better themselves and the incredible kindness of men like Ben Quilty, they are not only completely rehabilitated but are probably more educated than you or I. From all reports, they are good human beings and much loved. So imagine the good they could do now. The difference they could make. They don’t deserve death. They deserve compassion. Empathy. Help. Right up to the last-ditch end. Nothing less.
Anyone who says different is either a moron or a cold-hearted bastard.
And if Myuran and Andrew do end up blindfolded and gunned down in cold blood for some stupid reckless act they did a lifetime ago, I truly hope that those fine upstanding members of our Australian Federal Police who knowingly, wittingly, deliberately, sent them to their deaths are presented with framed photographs of the mothers weeping over their sons’ broken, bullet-smashed bodies. Will justice be served then, I wonder? Blood is on the AFP’s hands, no question. I hope the decision to make that phone call haunts those responsible.
As for my dad, well, I honestly don’t know what he would say. I know he is not a bitter, angry nor vengeful man. He never let what happened to him destroy him. I also know I would not be the person I am today without the compassion and love he continued to instill in me. I think he, like any of us - especially if we actually knew Myuran and Andrew personally - would not want them to be lined up like cattle and murdered.
So before you go and say they deserve such a horrible senseless death because “they were stupid” and because “drugs are bad, m’kay” and because it “sends a message”… just stop. Pause. Think. And try another perspective on for size.
My heart is with Myuran and Andrew. I really hope there is a last-minute reprieve and they make it.
Nick Snelling
