A PLEA FOR COMPASSION

WHY SCOTLAND’S Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, was right to release Locherbie
bomber and allow him to return to Libya, and why Mr Mueller, President Obama, Hillary
Clinton, the Lib Dems in Scotland and Gordan Brown in England are perfectly wrong.
Frankly, I am not concerned as to how Libya or Gadaffi receive the reprieved victim of
Scottish commiseration. I believe such matters to be anterior the concern to hand and , to
my mind should not concern anyone else unduly either. If there have been financial or
commercial inducements involved, then such features would not doubt be unsavory, but in
the public domain, I hardly think they can be denied. And in any event future cases -- not
unlike the shenanigans and delays of Jack Straw -- may be avoided.

If I had any regrets or misgivings in supporting Mr Kenny MacAskill in his very ordinary
response to a dying man, it is because he takes refuge behind what he considers are the
concerns of what he regards the support of the Christian churches. This , of course, is not
to say that his decision is not inspired by a secular view of history, rather than an appeal to
any false notions of Christian propaganda. For far too long the Christian Churches have
had no problem buring suspects or having them hanged, drawn and quartered when
appropriate, or passing them over to the secular authorities to execute people on their
behalf, as well as by supporting the secular state in hanging people for the past fifteen
hundred years, but particularly throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century. Indeed, if
the Catholic Church and the Papacy was half as inclined to campaign against the death
penalty as it is against abortion, the US would be rid of it. At which stage, they might well
realise that they need not kill people to deter criminals, or to feel secure in their
Christianity.

That said, let me say that I support the Justice Secretary’s decision entirely, and on the
following grounds.

China and the US are the primary people who still execute people. Year in , year out, their
is no recourse to such a concept as compassion. One feels that this is probably due --
especially in America -- to the fact that they have missed out on an entire span of the
religious wars, which, when conducted in Europe, invariably led to the hanging , drawing
and quartering of Christians by Christians.

Before that the same Christians -- invariably Catholics -- burned Witches, Recusants,
Heretics and Dissidents, including millions of Pagans, Huguenots, and Albigensian,and
who have conducted their hateful campaign against socialists, anarchists, communists,
homosexuals, etc..

Unfortuately, it is at this stage of the colonial spread of Catholic hate that the US was
introduced to Christianity. And without recourse to the former centuries of butchery, are not
quite aware on Death Row that people who have deep beliefs are apt to die with those
beliefs, without in the slightest changing their minds. Indeed, it is part -- not of Christian
history -- but of European secular history, to concede the impossibility and , indeed, the
implausibility, and , indeed, the undesirability, of changing another’s religiously held beliefs
by a death threat. Indeed, such behavior is considered by some as barbarous, futile and
redundant.

Given that a man is going to die, then the civilized attitude is to allow them to die. What I
hope Europe has leerned from its endless saints and martyrs is the simple fact, that the
most human society can extract from any man is his life. That being the case, the game of
punishment is over when a man is in imminent danger of death. Nothing remains for a
punitive society but to look itself in the eye and behave accordingly.

It should be remembered by those of us who claim to teach our children the virtue of
mercy, that it is two-edged. In reminding us of this fact, Scotland is our real criminological
Alter Ego. As the bard put it long ago:

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
The Merchant Of Venice Act 4, scene 1, 180–187

It is disappointing to realise that these considerations form nothing of the penological
repertoire of the US. Indeed, if there was less penetration of their society by an outdated
notion of the Christian and avaricious churches, and more reflection upon European and ,
indeed, American history, they ,too, might see the wisdom of refusing to pursue every
person who receives a capital sentence to death.

Moreover, when one considers those persons released as part of the Northern Ireland
Peace Agreement -- as well as the role of those who played a part in having terrorists
released, including Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and the responsive opposition parties -- how
can the present American loby sustain such a black press against Scotland? How can
Minister Gordon Browne remain silent on the current issue?

Scotland’s decision to release men in state of immenent death is to be supported, and one
can only hope that it is supported by every sensible and humane person on earth as well
as every criminological body in Scotland and the US.

Well done, Scotland! We want more of the same, not less!


Seamus Breathnach
www.irish-criminology.com