A Matter of Life or Death

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While European advocacy groups, political officials and the media are touting the McVeigh execution as an argument against the U.S. death penalty, there are no signs of a mass mobilization of public opinion. One reason is the lack of sympathy McVeigh engenders. Beyond that, though, European public opinion is in fact divided on the death penalty. In Britain, where the last legal vestiges of capital punishment were removed only in 1998, support for the penalty remains around 60%. A 1996 Dutch poll showed 52% in favor. In Italy and France, support runs over 40%.

According to Philippe Méchet, director general of France's Sofres polling firm, Bush and the U.S. still enjoy a fairly positive image in France, despite majority disapproval of capital punishment. "There is a big difference between the European élites and general public," he observes. "The élites, as reflected in the media, make a big issue of this, but public opinion does not feel as strongly about it."

For better or worse, the extraordinary media circus surrounding McVeigh's execution is sure to strengthen those feelings.

At least 1,600 print and electronic journalists will be reporting from within the grounds of the Indiana prison. Eight U.S. networks will be broadcasting live from the Hoosier state. Outside the prison walls, souvenir hawkers will be selling everything from coffee mugs to T shirts with pictures of syringes and the words "Hoosier Hospitality."

No images of the execution will be publicly broadcast, but a media pool of 10 journalists will witness and describe the scene. Cameras will record protest rallies, press conferences and, of course, tearful interviews with victims' relatives. McVeigh wanted the event broadcast nationally, and a U.S. Internet firm sought permission to post the images on its pay-per-view website. Authorities denied both requests, although they haven't entirely eliminated sensationalism from the witness chamber: novelist Gore Vidal, who is writing a piece for Vanity Fair, will attend as McVeigh's personal guest.

Some activists are hoping that the World Cup-style coverage will finally focus American attention on the issue of capital punishment. "The McVeigh execution is an important step in raising the level of media coverage of the death-penalty," says French abolitionist Michel Taube. "It can open the debate, stimulate donations to anti death-penalty groups, push more U.S. states to declare moratoriums and get the local American media talking about these questions."

Others are not so optimistic. "U.S. fascination with the McVeigh execution will promote the idea that American society is less humane and advanced than Europe," says Guillaume Parmentier, director of the Center for American Studies in Paris. "Bush's enthusiastic support for executions is bad for transatlantic relations. It gives the impression that we're drifting apart. It promotes the view, spread by the U.S. media, that the U.S. is a very violent society."

Indeed, much European commentary on the event has used it to present unflattering portraits of America. Writing in Britain's Independent newspaper, columnist Natasha Walter argued that Americans should be true to their natures by publicly broadcasting the execution. "People [would watch] out of pure voyeurism ... laughing, drinking beer, cheering. Then the United States would be revealed in its true colors — not as the decent, humane society that it likes to sell itself as, but as the barbaric country that it is, a country that kills and kills again, in the face of all international condemnation." More soberly, Gilles Delafon, foreign affairs columnist for France's Journal du Dimanche and author of a book on American gun violence, worries that the death penalty feeds Europe's latent anti-Americanism. "The Americans keep handing out clubs for others to beat them with — capital punishment, the refusal to ratify Kyoto, rejection of the International Criminal Court. The Europeans are only too happy to have reasons to criticize the U.S. because it allows them to say that their society is more civilized and enlightened. That not only encourages the anti-American, antiglobalization forces, but it also causes dismay and distrust among those who are not anti-American."

The Bush Administration may dismiss Europe's concerns as hypocritical, misguided or irrelevant. But in a world in which democratic values and human rights are increasingly becoming factors in international relations — largely under U.S. influence — there could be a price to pay for diplomatic isolation on the issue of capital punishment. Earlier this month, the U.S. was voted off the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since its formation in 1947. There were several explanations, ranging from opposition by human rights offenders tired of U.S. criticism to a defection by certain European allies. But many Europeans believe that America's persistent use of the death penalty was a factor. There could be other rude awakenings in the future. Some death-penalty opponents, citing an international "right of interference," are calling for a campaign to pressure the U.S. by all available means — diplomatic, legal, economic — to re-examine its use of capital punishment. It is unclear whether such pressure can sway American public opinion or vote-conscious politicians. But with Bush's arrival in the White House, and the resumption of federal executions, the issue is reaching critical mass. It will come up time and again — at the U.N., in U.S.-European Union dealings, in international forums like the First World Congress Against the Death Penalty that will gather in Strasbourg next month, headed by the Presidents of the E.U., the Council of Europe and major human rights organizations. The U.S. is sure to be their main whipping boy.

Until now, the U.S. has been deaf to foreign criticism, and domestic debate on the subject has been limited. But if the execution of a deluded psychopath like Timothy McVeigh can prompt a rethinking of this crucial issue, then, paradoxically, he may not have died in vain.