Public punishment and humiliation has taken different forms in different societies over the years; from the pillory and stocks in mediaeval England, through chain gangs in the American South to amputating thieves’ hands in countries which operate strict forms of Shari’a Law such as Saudi Arabia. The ultimate form is of course public executions – twenty three countries carried out capital punishments in 2010 according to Amnesty International. Anyone who has read Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish” (Surveiller et Punir) will not be able to forget the description of the public execution of the man who tried to kill the French king in the mid-18th-century. Robert-François Damiens was tortured with red-hot pincers; the hand which held the knife in the attempted assassination was burned using sulphur; molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. After several hours of

Read the full post here