Cultural imperialism: Death penalty, dog meat and the EU
GettyimagesbankBy Scott Shepherd According to some quick Google Maps calculations, it's about 4,880 miles from the most easterly tip of Cyprus to the westernmost point of South Korea. I'm no geographer, so I might be off by a few dozen miles, but the point remains: it's really far away.The reason I bring this up is not because I'm hoping to fly to Cyprus to sample some kleftiko or koupepia, as delicious as I'm sure they are. Rather, it's because the European Union (EU) ambassadors to Korea recently published a joint statement calling for an end to the death penalty in the republic. Cyprus, as the easternmost member of the EU, is the closest part of the bloc to Korea.Since seeing the ambassadors' statement, I've been trying to figure out how I feel.On the one hand, although I do sometimes waiver, I'm not a huge fan of the death penalty. There are all the classic arguments about possible miscarriages of justice, and the fact that, as the EU ambassadors note, the punishment is “irreversible.” It might be mentioned, of course, that you can't get back the years spent in prison
