What is interesting is that the English-language BBC presents this story with a sense of “White” moral indignation – but BBC Indonesia presented the same news story in a sympathetic manner. The BBC has already been banned from China for racially-motivated and fake news stories – so I suppose the BBC is trying not to be banned from Indonesia for exactly the same grounds. This situation does highlight how Eurocentric reporting will stoke racial prejudices on the one-hand (these photographs are terrifying to Westerners) – whilst at the same time pretending to support and express a non-White culture fairly. I will keep my powder dry as regards the reasons these punishments were carried-out. I neither agree nor disagree with relative systems of moral enforcement – things are what they are. I suppose the approach adopted here, is that if relatively minor issues are come-down upon really hard (short of the death penalty) – then individuals in society will not commit any crimes of a greater nature. I think this is simplistic and not always a correct assumption. I think 140-lashes would be difficult to take for a grown Western man – at least we can appreciate the courage of the condemned.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 