I swore I wasn't going to look at the
Google News reports anymore. Yes it was ostrich-like of me but it was upsetting me far too much. I had to look, though. Despite all efforts, the hanging is to go ahead as planned. The last time Kim Nguyen will see her son is Thursday afternoon. She has requested what is known as 'contact visits'. To date, a pane of glass has separated Nguyen from his family and friends during all visits. There has been no word yet from the Singapore authorities on whether Kim will be allowed to hold and hug her son before he is led to the gallows at dawn (local time) on Friday.
Within an hour of the scheduled execution of Nguyen, the Prime Minister's XI cricket match will begin in Canberra and Prime Minister John will be attending. I don't think he should cancel the match but to be honest, his attitude all along has really irked me. I would have had more respect for him if from the start he'd come out and said: "I don't give a damn about a heroin trafficker, let him swing" instead of pretending because of public opinion that he cared that there were rehabilitation prospects or in fact that he cared at all. Tonight was the first time in my life I have felt like swearing and using whatever foul language I knew to describe what a complete and utter cockroach I think he is and how ashamed I am that he is the Prime Minister of my country. Unfortunately, to be honest, I just don't know enough swear words even if I can combine everything I know in Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, French, German and English to describe exactly how contemptible I find him.
Fortunately for me, I found a satirical article that was able to describe how I felt without the use of a single curse word. Australia has a satirical paper known as
The Chaser. It's sort of like
The Onion. They published an article today called
Singapore denies Van Nguyen chewing gum as last meal. I highly recommend the article but I particularly loved these two paragraphs which truly encapsulate John Howard:
Meanwhile in Australia, John Howard has been criticised for planning to attend the Prime Minister’s XI cricket match on the day Nguyen is scheduled to be executed. But the PM relented earlier today, formally asking the Singapore government the delay Nguyen’s execution until the lunch break.
Although Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has ruled out taking Singapore to the ICJ over Nguyen’s case, the PM is considering a last minute request to the ICC to change the schedule for the day’s cricket.