Readers looking for a yawning divide between Asian and Western values can find one in attitudes toward drug use.
We are talking here not only about opium-derivative hard drugs like heroin, but also what are now considered in places like Los Angeles “recreational drugs” like cocaine and Japan’s long-time drug of choice kakuseizai (a categorical term for stimulants like methamphetamines, Ritalin, at the like) and marijuana (cannabis).
Asians, harkening back to a simpler, and morally clearer (if also less nuanced) era, tend to look at these drugs as not just a health and moral menace to the drug takers (whose taking of the drugs is unequivocally attributed to bad character and morals). More seriously, the drugs are seen as threatening the fabric and morality of society as a whole. Hence, both the drug takers and the illegal makers and traffickers who profit from them are considered serious (even existential) threats to social order, stability, and morality.
Unlike in some Western countries where libertarian notions of individual sovereignty hold sway, Asian tradition and “values” place at least as much emphasis on the individual’s place and responsibilities within larger social structures: the family as the base and core, extending to the clan, community, and the nation.
A moral and responsible Asian government will make every effort to prevent and to deter the use of dangerous drugs. When prevention fails, severe punishment—an indispensable part of deterrence—must follow.
We are seeing the East-West cultural/ethical gap in the case of “the Bali Nine.” Nine persons, including two Australians, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, convicted in 2006 of attempting to smuggle 8.3 kilograms of heroin Bali to Australia, are awaiting execution under Indonesia’s death penalty for drug trafficking.
Myuran Sukumaran, right and Andrew Chan, left, stand in front of their cell during an Indonesian... [+]
Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has received a barrage of appeals, including from Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and French President Francois Hollande, to remit the death sentences in a grant of clemency. Joko has refused. He was quoted in the February 24 The Australian declaiming: “This is Indonesia’s judicial and political sovereignty.”
What Joko says is true and he is perfectly justified in saying it.
The age of colonial extraterritoriality is thankfully over. Moreover, from an Asian moral and ethical perspective (i.e., the one that would, in a truly non-discriminatory world, be accepted in this case without further question), he is saying and doing no more than is required of him by duties and the responsibilities of his office.
Joko might also say, but does not need to in the Indonesian/Asian cultural context, that clemency in this case would set a problematic precedent that would over time, undermine the moral basis and hence the capacity to enforce the law, that is, to implement the punishment, which are necessary deterrents. The severity of the deterrent is not excessive (rather it is hardly even commensurate) to the effects of the crime: spreading the scourge of drug addiction, and its individually and societally devastating effects.
For his firm upholding of Indonesian sovereignty and law, Joko is to be commended.
Other Asian countries also have strict drug laws and enforcement regimes, and the two countries I know best, Japan and China, continue to toughen penalties and enforcement.
Yesterday, February 24, in Tokyo, Japan’s National Police Agency (NPA), as host, opened a two day meeting of the Asia-Pacific Operational Drug Enforcement Conference (ADEC), an organization that comprises some 30 countries from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America. The NPA’s chief, Kanetaka Masahito, delivered the keynote address. This is a recurring annual meeting of an organization in which Japan has long assumed an active leadership role.
One of Kanetaka’s themes was still inadequate sharing of intelligence between the drug enforcement authorities of the various members countries. I am guessing that a key gap is between Japan and China, which is the source or route by which illegal drugs enter Japan.
Japanese law is being revised to impose up to 10 years imprisonment and up to JPY 30,000,000 ($254,000) fine for importing kakuseizai and marijuana. Last December the Ministry of Finance proposed revising the law to allow more severe sentences depending upon the purity of the drugs.
Drug-related arrests of entertainers is a fairly common, if sad, occurrence in Japan. A recent case that caused a media frenzy was the arrest last May of singer/songwriter Miyazaki Shigeaki, whose stage identity was the Aska half of the decades-long highly successful pop duo Chage and Aska. Miyazaki eventually pleaded guilty to using stimulants over several years. His trial revealed also long-time, multiple mistresses and other facts that greatly disillusioned his many female fans.
In September Miyazaki was given a three year jail term, suspended for four years. “I’m terribly sorry for betraying my fans and anyone concerned,” Miyazaki told the court. “It may take me some time to return to being a decent human being, but I will battle my addiction under a doctor’s care.”
Many, if not most, American readers will find both the severity of the Miyazaki’s sentence and his evident contrition otherworldly. Anything close to these among entertainers (and courts) in Hollywood or New York is almost unimaginable.
This case provides an excellent “teaching opportunity” on the deep cultural and moral gulf between our increasingly libertarian Western cultures and societies and the cultures and societies of the even the most advanced of Asian nations.
For me, the Asians have the right answer. The West would do well to learn from them.
