Week10: Money to burn

Hi, everyone. Welcome to my week 10 blog! The weather is really nice this week, but my mood is not as good as the weather because I have two midterm exams this week. . . But even though I had a lot of things to do, I still found time to read this novel. I have to say that reading the novel outdoors in the sunshine is really a good choice.

This book tells the story of a large-scale bank robbery and is based on a real bank robbery in Buenos Aires in the 1960s. I'm actually not very fond of novels related to crime themes. I feel scared when I read them, especially when the novel is based on true events, which makes it even harder for me to accept. I feel like when people discuss this novel, they tend to focus on the protagonist, who is the criminal in this novel. I also want to briefly discuss my perspective here. In my eyes, most crimes are unforgivable. It's not justifiable to forgive someone for committing a crime just because they have a mental illness or childhood trauma. Moreover, the criminals in the novel also harm innocent people when robbing the bank, so I believe it's unforgivable. 

But what I want to discuss is the character of the policeman in the novel. In the eyes of the vast majority of people, the police maintain social order by the law, protect social security, prevent all behaviors that endanger society, and catch criminals who violate the law. But in detective novels, the police are often devalued. Just like in the famous animation "Detective Conan", the police always rely on detectives to solve crimes. Speaking of detectives, we have to mention Sherlock Holmes. He always appears when the police are at a loss to solve the case. In Piglia's novel, there's a subtle mockery of the police throughout the text. Moreover, in his portrayal, the police's methods of investigation are far from fair and just; "He never investigates, just resorts to torture to extract confessions." This makes me wonder, why the author depicts the police this way. Has he truly encountered such police officers? I think many people will actually put a protective cover on the police in our eyes, because the education we have received since childhood is that the police represent justice and fairness, but is this really the case? Perhaps it's just what we believe rather than what we see. There may be many unknown truths hidden behind the facade of justice. Recently, I watched a movie called "No More Bets" which discusses luring people into Myanmar and then controlling them to work for criminal organizations. The film is based on tens of thousands of real cases, focusing on ongoing transnational criminal activities such as online scams, online gambling traps, and recruitment fraud. In the movie, when the people abducted to Myanmar try to report to the police, they discover that the police have long been bought off by the criminal organizations; they are all accomplices of the criminals. The female lead escapes from the criminal group only to be betrayed by the police. They are the police, but they are also human, and human nature can change in an instant. So, is justice truly what we see, or is there something hidden beneath its surface?

Question: What do you think is fairness and justice?