Today’s 20-year verdict against Schapelle Corby, supposedly for drug possession and drug running on the island of Bali, has radicalized a major part of Australia. The 27-year-old surfer insists she didn’t do it, but was the victim of an airport smuggling ring that forgot to retrieve its pot from her boogie board bag. Conveniently for them, the film of the baggage sequence has disappeared from airport custody. And no fingerprints were taken from the pot, something Schapelle says would exonerate her. Meanwhile, Indonesia tried her with a real charmer of a judge who said he didn’t believe in acquitting anyone accused of drug running. Typical Indonesian form-over-substance logic. You like to believe Asia has a better education system than the West and then you see that kind of “thinking” among the elites in Indonesia. Especially if they are, at heart, petty clerks.

What can I say? I don’t know if she’s guilty or not.

On the one hand, Australia is loaded with dumb surfers, some of whom might try to smuggle pot into Bali. There’s a huge welfare yob culture Down Under where this kind of thing is important. The woman is right there in that class of people, a ‘beauty therapist’ who’s not exactly an overachiever. The other thing is, the woman is extraordinarily beautiful, so one wonders if the outpouring of Australian sympathy is based on her looks more than facts. An ugly old man caught with nine pounds of pot wouldn’t get such sympathy, for instance. Did her good looks make her think she could get away with anything she’d like?

On the other hand, I’ve been to Bali four times – love the place – and know that Bali is where pot is so readily available anyway you would think it’s legal if you didn’t know it wasn’t. Lots of places in Asia are like that – Penang and Melaka and Phuket and Cebu spring to mind. (Not Singapore of course!) In other words, the law isn’t enforced there, so to enforce it now sounds politically motivated. Not only that, the Indonesian customs agents are idiots – some who aren’t purely incompetent are perfectly bribeable, and a few are both, so one is right to wonder if this case was really good Indonesian police work or a setup. Besides this, Indonesians in the post-Iraq era seem to have a need to make an example of an Australian for its support of Iraq’s Liberation, something they opposed. Culturally indirect, masters of the passive-aggressive, Indonsians have always thought blunt Australians were uncouth if not evil – so it would not surprise me if they wanted to make an example of an Australian. Lastly, this woman has never been in trouble with the law before and no stories of beachside pot-smoking have emerged about her from her Aussie mates back home.

One thing is certain – even if Schapelle Corby is as guilty as the Indonesian court says she is, there’s no question the sentence is disproportionate to the crime, a textbook signal of tyranny. Twenty years for pot. Yes, you add, but sentences can be tough in those Asian countries. Singapore hangs kidnappers and gives the 24-stroke cane deal to gang members. And six strokes to graffiti punks. Philippines executes rapists. China executes bank embezzlers. Thailand shoots dopers, sometimes not bothering with niceties like trials. Vietnam hands pirates one cigarette and one swig of rum before blasting them to the next world.

And you thought Cowboy America was the crazy execution-happy country.

Here’s what justice is like in Indonesia:

Dictator Soeharto, thief of $40 billion and killer of 500,000, the man of The Year Of Living Dangerously’s rivers that ran red with blood in 1966, gets a mild ailment in his dotage, sending him to the hospital and everyone in the supposed new reformasi democrasi government is at the old dictator’s side, wishing him well, bringing him flowers.

Worse yet, the vile Abu Bakar Bashir, one of the world’s foulest terrorists, a man in the same league as bin Laden, Zarkawi, Hambali, Zawahri and Granda, got all of two and a half years’ jail for murdering 200 mostly Australian tourists on Bali three years ago.

What the hell does that say about Indonesian justice? 20 years for pot, 2 years for the worst terrorist mass massacre since 9/11? Twenty year sentences for Australians who damage Bali by bringing in pot, 2 year sentences for Indonesians who kill Australians in Kuta Beach nightclubs? It’s obvious some kind of injustice is going on, even if Schapelle Corby is as guilty as they come.

One other thought I’ve not seen anywhere: Make no mistake about the obvious hand of Jakarta in this. Although the case is on Bali, take a look at the names of all the court officials here – not one Balinese name among them. They are all from Jakarta, which detests Bali. This is not only because the Balinese are rich, resourceful and cognizant of trade, but because they are Hindu, not Muslim. “Savages,” I’ve heard Javanese call them. Indonesia is a highly stratified society, where government jobs are doled out by political patronage. Once when I stayed on the resort island of Bintan, I was fascinated to learn the geographical stratification of all the workers. All the cops and public officials were Javanese and Sundanese from Jakarta, politically connected. The waiters were Balinese. The ditch-diggers were Sumatrans. Balinese wouldn’t touch such a case as Schapelle’s if they were running things there, let alone hire a judge like that one who “never” acquitted anyone accused of drug running. Here is the implication: The Jakartans are steeped in their urban politics, the politics of Islamofascist resentment. Not so the Balinese. Therefore, Jakarta would probably not give a damn if Australians boycotted Bali, they don’t like the Balinese anyway.

How sad it all is. Indonesia is such a weak state that its citizens can feel nothing but rage and resentment against Australians. The kinder the Australians are to them, the angrier the Indonesians feel.

Indonesians are proud people with the world’s oldest continuous civilization but cannot compete with the material superiority of Australia. They can’t reciprocate. Deprived of property rights, stable currency, equality with elites and rule of law, they can only hope to earn tourist dollars, living off their past. With this weak state, citizens can neither be sincere nor grateful. They feel that Australians’ freedoms are ‘privilege,’ not merely freedom, and being poor people, they resent privilege they see all the time around them. Note that there was a mob outside the courthouse that cheered with glee when the 20-year sentence was read.

But Australia tries to be kind, materially and emotionally to Indonesia. Bali was bombed. Australians returned to the island instead of move on to safer spots out of compassion for the Balinese, most of whom work in the tourism industry. Sumatra’s west coast was wiped off the face of the earth. Australians handed them blood (nine dead on Nias) and treasure ($1 billion in aid) to take care of their neighbor in need. When Indonesia tried to save itself from the IMF through dollarization, only Australia stood by its side back in 1998 while the whole world opposed them. Meanwhile, Australia provides countless scholarships to Indonesians and opens its doors to Indonesian immigrants. It gets bomb blasts at its embassy in Jakarta – unsolved of course, unlike Schapelle’s case – in return.

Bitter fruits. And the reaction from Australians? Apparently, a feeling of having had enough. They are boycotting Bali in a way they didn’t after the terrorist bombing. And look at all these pro-Schapelle sites around Australia, visible here, here, here and here.

In short, Australians have become radicalized. Public officials are telling them to calm down, and apparently this urging is just whipping up political firestorms, intensifying the public anger. Australian Prime Minster John Howard is telling Australians to buck up and respect the verdict. Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer is telling Australians not to boycott Bali because the issue is not about tourism. On the contrary, it’s all about tourism. If tourists are afraid this is a setup and afraid it could happen to them, it makes sense to boycott Bali just for one’s own safety. Off to Fiji. Downer doesn’t have a clue. And Australians are rebelling against their elites, something bubbling under the surface we didn’t know about. This has the churning feel of a revolution.

Speaking of beauty, consider that the Miss Universe pageant, something that tries to stay out of politics, but never does, will be held this Monday in nearby Thailand. The current holder of the title is an Australian surfer. Ironic enough. But consider also that a frontrunner in the Miss Universe pageant this weekend is an Indonesian woman, the country’s first entry to the pageant in 40 years, a girl who will stop traffic. And in a way she is – she’s drawing street protests from ugly old crones in white sheets who don’t approve of beauty pageants on religious grounds. Despite the fact that Islam in Indonesia allows every girl to interpret Islam as she sees fit, these busybodies are after her and have made it a hot issue in Indonesia. Probably not good news for Schapelle. I don’t know exactly what it means, but I’ll be watching that thing this weekend.

Here is an Australian blogger roundup:

The Untitled Document says there are definitely Australians dumb enough to smuggle drugs into third-world places like Bali. He says if she had been caught in Australia doing the same thing, he’s sure she’d be guilty. But he thinks Australians should boycott Bali.

Tim Blair thinks she’s innocent. He points out that a big bust of baggage handlers on the same day Shapelle flew out of the airport raises the likelihood that dopers put drugs in her surf board bag and were unable to retrieve them. Makes sense. Tim has a good roundup of different blogger views.

Currency Lad says she’s innocent and reminds that Indonesia blithely admits its main problem is corruption. He points out that the judge says he’s never acquitted anyone accused of smuggling drugs – some judge! And he also cites the suspicious busts at Australia’s airport. He points out that many neanderthals on the Australian right think she’s guilty because of her low-class name, despite their disbelief in any Islamic system of justice. Between Indonesian justice and a low-class name, the low-class name is worse. Like Blair, he says the sentence is infamously unjust.

Kev Gillett points out a letter to the editor that compares the sentence of the murderers of Australians with that of an apparent Aussie drug dealer. He says he could not say it better.

It’s A Matter Of Opinion opines that Australians have been force-fed a lot of propaganda about this woman’s supposed innocence. He wonders why she was carrying a boogie board bag into Australia when her brother in law, who is Indonesian, owns a surf shop in Bali. He also discounts the drug dealer network busted in the Aussie airport the same day Schapelle was busted – they were smuggling drugs into Australia after all. Besides that, Aussie dope is better than Indonesian dope, giving Schapelle something of an incentive to smuggle drugs into Bali. He also doesn’t care for her low-class name. He says his opinion shifts from day to day, it’s just the media he can’t stand. His blog has a very interesting comment thread accompanying this.

The 52nd State has a cool take on this case, warning that media exposure, among other things, has corrupted it, making a good reading about the woman’s guilt or innocence difficult. “The war is over, we lost,” he notes. He warns against mucking around with rule of law, even Indonesia’s in the Lady-Diana-style heat of public emotion. He also notes that the blogosphere is more circumspect about this case than the Australian “Street.” It’s a good blog.

Dogfight at Bankstown warns Australians to temper their anti-Indonesian rhetoric, be glad the woman wasn’t shot for this, and note that many other Australians (the ugly old men I cited earlier?) have met far worse fates around Asia on drug charges. Interesting insights.

If anyone has more Aussie blog talk about this to post a link to, email me at ammorayleonÉgmail.com