Here are two very different views of Scotland’s release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. The first is from Anglican bishop and theologian N. T. Wright who believes, among other things, that the British see things differently from the U.S. – N. T. Wright certainly does. Even though the U.K. mood is illogical, one gets the impression that Wright approves of it as he tut-tuts about Abu Graib and U.S. anti-Arab sentiment. And all this is from a bishop whose country is home to the BNP.
Many people in the UK see the reaction in the U.S. as being typical U.S. anti-Arab and particularly anti-Libya reaction. Because we are conditioned to be a bit worried about U.S. knee-jerk pro-Israel attitudes we tend to distance ourselves from that kind of position. Please note, I am NOT saying any of this is particularly significant in terms of the actual decision, just that it is the context within which the debate is going on. Many in the UK have been horrified, too, by the ongoing sagas about Abu Graib, Guantanamo Bay and so on, and in consequence do not like being told by America how to treat prisoners. This may be illogical but it’s the mood at the moment. I know that most Americans do not like being told by Brits how to do things either; that comes with the territory ever since George Washington vs King George III. So be it.
A different perspective from Chuck Colson:
Scotland has made a mockery of justice. Ask the families of the 270 people al-Megrahi murdered.
By any measure, serving only eight years in prison for blowing up an airplane full of people is nothing short of scandalous. Surely there are appropriate ways to show mercy — even to a terminally ill mass murderer: Scotland could have given him palliative medical care, could have allowed family visits, or even arranged for family to stay with al-Megrahi during his last days.
In his essay, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment,” Christian writer C. S. Lewis argued that we ought to punish people for no other purpose than just deserts, and in so doing, we recognize that humans are free moral agents, responsible for our actions. That’s why Lewis wrote, “To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better,’ is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.”
