The Doctrine of Revenge
I have seen the horror of the death penalty and the violence it propels. It is time for a global ban.
For most of the 20th century the majority of the world’s nations used the death penalty. But, as the millennium approached, many societies questioned whether killing their citizens through the judicial system served a positive purpose. I am delighted that the death penalty is being removed from the globe. To a Christian whose belief system is rooted in forgiveness, the death penalty is unacceptable.
Either in law or in practice, 130 countries have now abolished the death penalty. And since 1990, 50 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Last year only 25 countries carried out executions.
So strong is the global sentiment against the death penalty - with some notable exceptions, such as the United States, China and Singapore - that a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions and the abolition of capital punishment is scheduled to go before the United Nations general assembly tomorrow. The world community will decide its view on the morality of capital punishment.
I have experienced the horror of being close to an execution. Not only during the apartheid era of South Africa, when the country had one of the highest execution rates in the world, but in other countries as well.
And I have witnessed the victims of the death penalty the authorities never speak of - the families of those put to death. I remember the parents of Napoleon Beazley, a young African-American man put to death in Texas after a trial tainted by racism. Their pain was evident as the killing of their son by the state to which they paid taxes approached. I can only imagine the unbearable emotional pain they went through as they said their final goodbye to their son on the day of his execution.
It is often asked by those favouring the death penalty: “What if your child was murdered?” And it is a natural question. Rage is a common reaction to the homicide of a loved one, and a wish for revenge is understandable. But what if the person condemned to death was your son? No one raises a child to be a murderer, yet many parents suffer the grief of knowing their child is to be killed. In 1988, the parents of those on death row in South Africa wrote to the president, saying: “To be a mother or father and watch your child going through this living hell is a torment more painful than anyone can imagine.” We must not put these children to death. It is to inflict horrific and unacceptable suffering upon them, and their mothers and fathers.
Retribution, resentment and revenge have left us with a world soaked in the blood of far too many of our sisters and brothers. The death penalty is part of that process. It says that to kill in certain circumstances is acceptable, and encourages the doctrine of revenge. If we are to break these cycles, we must remove government-sanctioned violence.
The time has come to abolish the death penalty worldwide. The case for abolition becomes more compelling with each passing year. Everywhere experience shows us that executions brutalise both those involved in the process and the society that carries them out. Nowhere has it been shown that the death penalty reduces crime or political violence. In country after country, it is used disproportionately against the poor or against racial or ethnic minorities. It is often used as a tool of political repression. It is imposed and inflicted arbitrarily. It is an irrevocable punishment, resulting inevitably in the execution of people innocent of any crime. It is a violation of fundamental human rights.
Desmond Tutu is a former archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel peace laureate.
© 2007 The Guardian
Desmond Tutu is a man of great courage and one of the few Christians in the world that I have respect for. One of very few that seem to be “Christ-like” in thought word and deed.
No secret that George W. Bush is in favor of Capital Punishment. In fact, while he was Governor of Texas, more executions took place in this state than at any other time. Yet, President Bush is a Christian. Wait a minute! So are most Americans. Yet, after September 11th, some American Christians prefered revenge and scapegoatism instead of reconciliation. The people of South Africa have went through much worse than Americans have regarding racism. Much worse than the American experiences of Jim Crow KKK and slavery. Yet, the people of South Africa were willing to rise above their past with a sense of friendshipand forgiveness. Why can’t Americans?
Let me guess? Arrogance and pride among American society.
We know where Bush stands on the death penalty, and likely the rest of the republican candidates as well. If the UN resolution passes they will “respectfully disagree.”What about the democratic candidates? Have any of them put forth a position on the dp?
One of the last vestiges of barbarism. I agree! This should be voted on nationally and abolished.
Similarly, we need a Department of Peace that competes against the Pentagon to solve foreign policy problems.
Since no one can guarantee that no innocent person will ever be executed, then every execution becomes a human sacrifice to a delusional vision of Justice.
“To a Christian whose belief system is rooted in forgiveness, the death penalty is unacceptable.” Excuse me? Doesn’t the Bible also give us “An eye for an eye” (Exodus 21)? Even someone as respected as Mr. Tutu can be hypocritical when it comes to religion.
I can see a fundamentalist writing the exact opposite of this article, in Favor of the death penalty…”To a Christian whose sense of justice is based on Exodus 21:23-27, and eye for an eye, the death penalty is fundamental…”
How about being against the death penalty because we’ve all decided it’s wrong, and we won’t allow it. Plain and simple. (And yes, I know that seems ‘relative’. It is, but it works, just like everyone in a community agreeing to drive on the same side of the road.)
voxclamantis asked about the positions of the Democratic candidates. There is a website that gives those positions with a few words of explanation or qualification, but I’ll summarize the positions here. Still, you should visit the site of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life for more details:
http://pewforum.org/religion08/compare.php?Issue=Death_Penalty
Mike Gravel Dem Anti
Dennis Kucinich Dem Anti
Joe Biden Dem Pro
Hillary Clinton Dem Pro
Christopher Dodd Dem Pro
John Edwards Dem Pro
Barack Obama Dem Pro
Bill Richardson Dem Pro
Ron Paul Rep Anti
Rudolph Giuliani Rep Pro
Mike Huckabee Rep Pro
Duncan Hunter Rep Pro
Alan Keyes Rep Pro
John McCain Rep Pro
W. Mitt Romney Rep Pro
Tom Tancredo Rep Pro
Fred Thompson Rep Pro
Unfortunately the site ignores third party candidates. The Green Party is opposed to the death penalty, and Cynthia McKinney has voted in favor of a moratorium. I believe that she is completely opposed to it.
For general information on the death penalty, the best place to start is:
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
wise guy - Thanks so much for the site and the summary. It’s funny though how we probably could have guessed what each candidates view would be without even looking at that site.
‘Doesn’t the Bible also give us “An eye for an eye”?’
Yes, and also “Thou shalt not kill.” And some injunctions about not eating pork or shellfish. I don’t think it’s hypocritical to discard or ignore the bits of the Bible that are poorly thought through, or contradict some other bit. It’s not like it’s the US Constitution, y’know.
Death penalty advocates should consider the following: to support capital punishment, one must either believe that the court system is infallible (which is demonstrably false, as in the case of Kirk Bloodsworth and others), or that it is acceptable to occasionally execute innocent persons.
To be just in a fallible world, punishment must not be irrevocable. Imagine going to the death chamber for a crime you didn’t commit. Imagine your child going there.
Our society can do better: where warranted by the nature of the crime, life without parole is a severe but revocable punishment. The US has no need for and should eliminate capital punishment.
The whole punishment system in the US needs an overhaul. (I refuse to use the word justice to describe it; if justice is occasionally served, it is by accident). But that’s another discussion.
I read recently in an Australian newspaper that even Russia (the heart of the old Soviet Union) has declared a moratorium on the death penalty. Doesn’t that put the US in great company: Iran, North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and a few others.
I’ll be interested to see how the US votes on the resolution - I’ll likely not be surprised.
The death penalty fails for two reasons:
1. It removes a society’s incentive to reduce crime through improved education and social conditions etc.
2. It requires the state to hire professional executioners, who themselves become tainted by murder, enlarging the circle of the social abberation which is a crime, instead of reducing the effect. This problem is made considerably more serious when one considers that frequently the condemned are innocent due to errors in the justice system, creating state sponsored murder.
After we hang Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld.
An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blink. I think that is a quote from the guy said to be the saviour of the world…
I’m honestly not opposed to a death penalty, I think some acts deserve such a sanction, but am adamantly opposed to executing anyone. Even one person executed by mistake is too many. If someone wants to act like an animal, treat them as such and put them into a cage until they’re dead, then bury them behind prison walls. And yes, treat them much better than they have treated others. At least that way there’s a good chance that the truely innocent can be freed, and the truely guilty might be punnished.
Blast! I meant blind. not blink, blind. An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.
For some reason, I’ve never been able to edit my posts…
Got Metta,
well said. you demonstrate that recourse to faith-based dogma is unnecessary to demonstrate that the death penalty is unjustifiable. Also,I have no problem with anyone who bases his/her desire to abolish the d.p. upon religious conviction, though simple rational thinking as shown above is sufficient and even “higher” than reasons based upon myth, as valid as that myth may be. I can’t help but believe the cosmos will breathe a sigh of relief upon the final banning of all capital punishment by every nation on this planet (yeah, that’s my myth :)). May it be sooner than later. And I too doubt any of us will be surprised at how the U.S. votes in this moratorium.
…peace
Eboniv,
I fully agree. I respect faith based arguments and recognize that some of the most active and effective death penalty opponents are faith based (Helen Prejean comes to mind). But, faith based arguments are too easily dismissed out-of-hand by non-believers – not all subscribe to Maimonides advice that “one should accept the truth from whatever source it proceeds”. Having a non-faith based argument addresses this. I believe the more routes to the same conclusion the higher the confidence that it is correct.
Desmond Tutu has an integrity lacking from most proponets for any cause–he practiced what he preaches even under the extreme povocation of Apartheid South Africa. Desmond got the Nobel Peace Prize for setting up the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission which gave amnesty to anyone who would come forward and confess whatever crimes they had committed against their countrymen during the Apartheid era.
This he did at great personal risk to his life from angry whites (who did not want the truth to come out about how miserably they treated Blacks in their own country)and blacks (who wanted the truth to come out so that they could avenge the wrongs committed against them with violence).
Kane Jeeves, Got Metta, and Einsten all make good points but i want to take on a favorite pro-death penalty argument not addressed so far.
It asks “How do you propose to protect society from violent people short of giving them “three hots and a cot” for the rest of their days at great cost to the rest of society?”
The answer is simple, humane, and effective and it is exile. Put those so convicted among their own type on a sufficiently remote island guarded by naval patrols with no chance to escape. Should any manage to escape they are at the mercy of any avenger of those whose death they caused.
Has anybody noticed that when former Illinois Governor Ryan (now serving time for corruption while in office)commuted the death penalties of all death row inmates prior to leaving office that it didn’t result in any spike in murders in Illinois? (Ryan’s stated reason was because of a study showing that death penalty prosecutions were uniformly botched jobs with coerced confessions and dubious
“evidence” used to convict the accused).
What’s Jesus got to do with Christianity? According to the Archbishop, a lot; according to Bush, Robertson, the late Falwell and Kennedy, et al., very little other than serving as a sacrificial victim and icon.
No mention yet of the primary argument against the death penalty; it is a violation of equal protection under the law. There is nothing a millionare could do that would get him executed.
kanejeeves, as a family of extreme ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, killer Mulim’s, that is one of the nicer names we are called. Inthe sense of Christianity Bishop Tutu speaks of is more of the Jesus, New Testament, than the Talmudic Old Testament belief, love and turn the other cheek. Try not to over analyze every morsel. It’ll kill’ya! Quicker than bush intends to, anyway.
I don’t know why folks don’t seem to know that in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus SPECIFICALLY repudiates the “eye for an eye” thing….
“You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:38–39)
How is this not clear??? Why do all these so-called “Christians” constantly cite the text of the Old Testament rather than the Gospel in the New Testament???
BTW, Bishop Tutu is truly a magical, Christ-like man–I was privileged to meet him just over a year ago–I’ll treasure the hug I got from him for the rest of my life……
AB Tutu is a hero to me.
My brother was murdered 2 1/2 years ago by a woman, senseless as a piano falling out of the sky. No question as to guilt, none at all. Initially a death sentence (as the prosecution was looking for) seemed like something I could live with, and me, against the death penalty all these years. Its different when your there mind you. Its different. After all this time, the woman convicted, off relatively easily, I realise her death or life means absolutely nothing to me. One person on this earth means NOTHING. I dont fucking care at all about her, never will. As a victim of this crime I know her death doesn’t and couldn’t change anything. My beloved brother Michael is gone and that is absolute.
I miss him.
Even though it is not possible to be absolutely sure when using the death penalty that it is warranted, some crimes are so horrible and merciless that they must be punished severely. DNA testing has made accuracy much easier to attain and every effort should be taken to only consider execution for the very worst offenders. Should we not weigh these few against the hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children that the Bush war on terror has killed and all of the ruined lives both in our country and in Iraq and Afganistan? It is not so easy to have a simple answer to things of this nature as we live in an imperfect world and can only try to do what is right and proper.
“Retribution, resentment and revenge have left us with a world soaked in the blood of far too many of our sisters and brothers.’
And yet the killings go on ..only this time backed by the imprimatur of Corporate Greed .
Capital punishment in the U.S. seems to be ritual sacrifice-killing to the god of stratified social class. To abolish the death penalty would be to undermine the foundation of predatory capitalism: the class system. It is the ruling class punishing the untouchables in a methodical, cold and calculating manner as prescribed by “the state” which is just another word for ruling class. It is, after all, called CAPITAL punishment.
Hint for all bloggers here: do a Websearch on this name, concerning a case 32 years old from my country that concluded on Monday - STEFAN KISZKO
Thank you.
Ordinarily I’d wholeheartedly agree with Bishop Tutu. He’s a man who has lived his beliefs.
But I can make exceptions in the case of a few US politicians. Therapeutically amputating Dubya’s head is recreational pesticide, not killing as such.
“Those who live by the executioner, will die by the executioner” - misquoting the Nazarene.
Hate is an impotent motive for the building of positive things anew. True enough.
But instinctual anger, focused against injustice and outrageous brutality is a necessary pre-condition for change.
We can not build any sensible heaven on this crude planet without first removing from power all those who selfishly benefit by keeping it a Hell.
Removing them isn’t violence; it is self-defense.
It makes you wonder why the U.N. general assembly bothers with resolutions anymore. Couldn’t such voting time be better spent in having mint tea in the gardens? Or practicing a few new words of foreign languages in the companionship of fine friends from other nations? I mean, really, if a U.N. general assembly vote of 184 in favor and 4 against means absolutely nothing, then what is to be gained from scheduling a vote where it is known beforehand that there will be at least 5 dissenters, and probably more.
As a Buddhist I too value forgiveness and compassion as the paramount values we should aspire to. For far too long we’ve clung to punishment of “bad guys”( when did this become a legitimate label anyhow?) as a method of social control. It doesn’t work to kill people just to satisfy the vengeance and sadism we’re all prone to possess. Moreover, we’ve learned through our social and biological sciences to analyze harmful behavior and attempt to create solutions to it. These sciences are quite young and prone to error, but it doesn’t mean we should “throw out the baby with the bath water” and return to the unenlightened paradigms of the past.
Thou shalt not kill. Period.
Why do all these so-called “Christians” constantly cite the text of the Old Testament rather than the Gospel in the New Testament???
In its context, the eye for an eye thing was intended to moderate the disproportionate retributions to which Old Testament folks were prone - Tribe A revenging itself tenfold on Tribe B. It was a call for restraint in a society given to murderous rampages. Even the New Testament has surprisingly little to say about the death penalty, considering that the Christians were frequently the ones getting whacked. Christ seems to have found it hypocritical and redemptively unuseful, but the practice has been so ingrained in human culture that until recent times it has not occurred to anybody to see the practice as inherently abhorrant or unjust.
It is to the credit of John Paul II and Bishop Tutu that many in the Catholic tradition have come to understand what Freud figured out years ago: that we live blithely in a “Culture of Death,” at the effect of nasty underground forces, be they demonic or psychological, and that we ignore them at our individual and collective peril.
alexlawyer: good post. bush, robertson, etc. wear jesus masks to rob & murder. tutu tries to be jesus!
You think it’s remarkable that South Africa (from where I write this) abolished judicial killing?
Guess which other African country has done the same just this year? Rwanda. That’s right, site of some of the worst organized mass murders the world has ever witnessed. See:
http://tinyurl.com/2bmj3w
http://tinyurl.com/2×9uyf
http://tinyurl.com/3boqaf
and note especially the quote in the last of these three - both what is said, and by whom:
“It didn’t deter people from picking up machetes to slaughter their fellows - that’s why we are not bothered by its removal,” said Theodore Simburudali, president of the Ibuka genocide survivors’ group.
Christians are supposedly committed to living according to the teachings of Jesus (love and forgiveness) and not according to the Jewish Law (an eye for an eye). Much of the confusion about what it means to be a Christian is based on an unquestioned assumption that a Christian lives by the Bible, rather than the teachings of Jesus as found in the New Testament. As Jesus said, “You have heard it said of old . . . but I say unto you.” If we were truly a Christian nation, then our guidelines would be closer to the Sermont on the Mount (Matthew 5,6, 7) than the Old Testament where you can find stories and teachings that, taken out of their historical context, can justify almost anything you wish - including the death penalty.
voxclamantis wrote
: It is to the credit of John Paul
: II and Bishop Tutu that many in
: the Catholic tradition have come
: to understand what Freud figured
: out years ago
Just a minor point, but it’s worth noting explicitly that Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is not a Catholic clergyman: the Archbishop of Cape Town is the primate (provincial head) of the Anglican church in the region (the Church of the Province of Southern Africa), which is descended directly from the Church of England, which remains part of the Anglican Communion, and whose counterpart in the US is the Episcopal Church (ECUSA). Tutu’s daughter has been ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church.
It’s worth noting also that the South African Anglican church has differed considerably from some in Africa (like Nigeria) in the recent disputes within Anglicanism: indeed, the SA Anglican church itself has some pretty senior openly gay clergy (though they are still officially required to be celibate), and Archbishop Tutu has in the past publicly apologized for his church’s treatment of gay and lesbian people. A truly remarkable and inspiring human being (and I say that as an atheist).