Regular readers will know that I stand against the death penalty. Yet, I feel unmoved that Imam Samudra, Mukhlas and Amrozi were executed this morning on the prison island of Nusakambangan, off the coast of Java. Have I changed my mind?

The blasts at Kuta, Bali, on 12 October 2003, killed 202 people. Photo by Roberto Maldonado/Katz

As I have written before, states tend to apply the death penalty to three different kinds of crimes: those that do not involve murder, e.g. treason or drug traffcking; those that involve murder in one-off incidents; and those that involve either serial or preplanned mass murder; and the moral case against the death penalty can vary from one kind to another. It is hard to make the case against it when a perpetrator cold-bloodedly planned and prepared to kill and maim as many as possible, and examining my feelings this morning, I am not even inclined to try.

Imam Samudra, Mukhlas (alias Ali Ghufron) and Amrozi were among the key figures behind the bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali in October 2002, killing 202 people, mostly Indonesians and Australians. The BBC has a good background story here. 

On the whole, the Indonesian authorities have bent over backwards to ensure due process before the executions were carried out by firing squad -- the usual way it's done in the country. They've also been very judicious about when to use the death penalty in this case. 

Ali Imron, a third brother of Mukhlas and Amrozi, had helped assemble the main bomb that was used in the Sari club, but due to his expressed remorse and co-operation with the police and prosecution, he was sentenced in September 2003 to life imprisonment -- the prosecution had asked for 20 years -- instead of death. At his trial, Ali Imron apologised to the victims and their families and seemed genuinely sorry for his part in the tragedy.

Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra expressed no remorse at all. The only regret these three have expressed was in how some Muslims had died in the course of their actions. Non-believers, in their view, deserved to be killed.

As for their facing the firing squad, they have said they wanted to be "martyrs" for the Islamic cause. Their supporters -– and it should be noted, these are just an extremist fringe in a population that by and large were appalled at the crime -– have promised retaliation for the executions.

Mukhlas himself told reporters just a month ago: "Execution is the biggest criminal act (possible), especially when it is applied to warriors like us. All those who are involved in the execution will be condemned by God.

"The followers will take revenge actions, other warriors. If anyone kills us then there will be a (sic) revenge from all over the place," he threatened.

"I've never regretted these bombings ... I will not ask for forgiveness from those infidels...." [1]

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All this talk about infidels may sound like the rantings of a mad man. The truth, however, is that it has deep roots in Islam and, for that matter, in the other Abrahamic religions too, expressed in the idea that they and their co-religionists are a people apart. On them is bestowed a special grace; among themselves is obliged a different treatment, the corollary of which is that outsiders can be treated in lesser ways.

Still fresh in my mind is an incident that happened a few months ago. I was attending a conference in Kuala Lumpur comprising delegates from all Asean countries (except Burma), Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. I was seated between an Australian woman who was a long-time resident of Laos (and previously a long time resident of Indonesia), and a pastor from the Philippines.

At the first session, when each of us had to introduce ourselves, we were stunned when the headscarfed Brunei delegation said something to the effect that they were happy to be present, and then added: "To all our Muslim friends, As-salamu alaikum."

As if to prove it was no slip of the tongue, the equally headscarfed women in the Malaysian delegation did exactly the same thing, invoking the Arabic greeting "to our Muslim friends."

(The Indonesian delegation, comprising men and scarfless women, did no such thing.)

On our side of the table, we were shocked and offended. The Arabic phrase simply means "Peace be with you" and has no religious significance. It is a cultural expression, no different from the Chinese expression "Chi bao le ma?" (Have you eaten yet?). "As-salamu alaikum" is an invocation applicable to all guests from far and near. In the Arabic world, and in Indonesia, as the Australian/Lao beside me said, people would use the greeting to anyone whatever his race or creed.

Why must the Muslim Bruneians and Malaysians make the distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims in the conference? Besides being one more symptom of this unthinking tendency to see mimicry of Arab culture as proof of piety or moral rectitude, it is unnecessarily divisive. In one stroke, it told us that we are lesser humans in their eyes. But the greater significance is this: It highlights the fact that the thought processes that lead to seeing the world as divided between the infidel and the righteous, and the justifiability of lesser treatment for non-believers -– killing them too? -– spring from these very common habits of mind.

The sad thing is that we see much more of the perpetuating discourse -– about the Muslim world, the ummah, etc -– than the counter-discourse. We seldom hear anyone decrying this kind of thinking as dangerously separatist and exclusivist or pointing out how it sows the seeds of intolerance, injustice and violence. Particularly in Singapore, when our state-imposed idea of religious harmony is to keep silent and never criticise religious leaders or their blinkered preachings, especially if you're not of that religion, we seem complacent about letting such a cancer spread.

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L - R: Mukhlas, Amrozi and Imam Samudra were executed by firing squad on the prison island of Nusakambangan at 15 minutes past midnight in the early hours of 9 November 2008.
 
 
Just because I don't feel outraged this morning on learning of the executions doesn't mean I agree with the death penalty even for these three. I would have been just as undisturbed if President Yudhoyono had commuted their sentences to life imprisonment. (I am sure though that many people, including millions of Indonesians, would have been outraged by such uncalled-for leniency.)

I think the emptiness that I feel is not a reflection of uncertainty about the moral case against judicial execution, it's more a recognition that the evil some people do can be so great as to dwarf one's moral principles. You fear you're reduced to sounding tinny speaking out against the death penalty when faced with the enormity of their deeds. In sympathy for the victims, you can't find air in your lungs to voice your objections.

I salute those others who, despite losing loved ones, stood by their convictions. BBC reported that Barbara Hackett, whose daughter Kathy was killed in the bombings, still does not support the death penalty. Despite her grief and anger, she said, "It can't bring back Kathy or the other 201 victims." [2] 

And that is the point. Rightly or wrongly, Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra have been shot, but they don't deserve our thoughts. These instead should go to their victims.

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