The Angry Exile: Strangers should be seen and not heard.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Saturday 20 June 2009

Strangers should be seen and not heard.

Bob Brown's making better headlines in the last couple of days having sprung to the defence of a female Senator and fellow green:

THE Greens have challenged federal parliament to become more child-friendly after the two-year-old daughter of one of their senators was ejected from the chamber yesterday.

Greens leader Bob Brown said he would pursue a motion of dissent over Senate President John Hogg's decision to remove Sarah Hanson-Young's child, Kora, during a vote.

Kora burst into tears when she was taken from her mother, a South Australian senator, by a staffer and could still be heard crying outside after the chamber doors were locked.

"We can't allow children to be in here for a division," the Labor senator said.

He could not be reached for comment immediately after the incident, while Senator Hanson-Young declined to comment.

Senator Brown said the rules classifying an infant with her mother as a "stranger" in the house belonged to the horse-and-buggy era.

Oh, where to start? First off, if she was a bus driver Sarah Hanson-Young would not normally be able to have her daughter with her. Ditto if she was about a million and one things. Would you expect female surgeons to have their kids in the operating theatre while they rummage in patients? Or airline pilots having a kiddie seat where the other pilot's supposed to be? Or virtually any job you can think of for that matter. Most jobs don't have any practical way to have your kids around unless your job actually involves working with children. Most people have to get around not having their kids around. If that's a deal breaker then don't we go for the fucking job, and that should includes those wanting to be an MP or Senator. Apparently non-political mums understand this perfectly well.

Second, if Kora Hanson-Young is not a "stranger" then exactly what is she? I'm assuming that the idea and term came, like much else, from the Westminster system. That would mean a stranger is simply anyone who is neither a member of that chamber nor a Parliamentary official. I can't see why progeny should be added.

Third, what about the fellas? If, as we're told, equality legislation [headslap] insists on women being allowed to bring the ankle biters not just into Parliament House but into the debating chambers themselves then sorry ladies, but it cuts both ways. What's good for the goose is good for the gander - it must go both ways or not at all. And if it's to be the latter where do you draw the line? When everyone attending a debate has brought a child or two along and the kids outnumber the politicians? No, sorry, that's clearly not acceptable. Yet if we say the line shouldn't be that high then where? It becomes arbitrary, which in turn means it's not fair on the first one to turn up with the kids in tow to be told that the Parliamentary sprog limit has already been reached. As said previously, if it's a deal breaker for anyone thinking of standing for Parliament then they shouldn't go for the fucking job either. It's just the same if you live in Perth and can't hack the traveling to Canberra all the time - you just. Don't. Do. It. Look, I've been there and the place is fucking huge. You want to have kids in there then find a nice big room, clear out a few desks and make a decent crèche. I know about this and frankly you can do better than 22 places when you have 150 members of the House of Reps, 76 Senators. Of course, there are a couple of thousand or so other people who work there and they must be treated equally, right? Or do those elected to Parliament get some sort of preferential treatment? Not going to fly any better with regular people than the preferential treatment of having your kids in there if you ask me.

Fourth, and kind of following on from that, if you really, really want a child friendly Parliament that attracts women (and men) who are also parents who need to look after children then you'll need to make some fucking drastic changes. For one thing late sittings are not at all child friendly, and yet wouldn't it be irresponsible of a Parliamentarian to duck the responsibility of representing their electorate for personal reasons? Perhaps not all late sessions are important but there only has to be one and suddenly the choice is between your child and many thousands of people who expect you to represent them adequately. Tough choice and not a fair situation to put people in, so late sessions have got to go. But then the kids get older and we start running into the same situation at the beginning and end of the school day, so to be fair to MPs and Senators who have younger school age children the school run hours are probably out too. Then for older kids there may be after school activities that they may need collecting from, which would bugger up the early part of the evening. Weekend sittings then? That'd be drastic, but fair? Not for those whose children are sporty and want the support of Mum/Dad for netball or footy. No individual will have their whole weekend accounted for but you can virtually guarantee that across those 226 people there'd be several who couldn't make any given time slot.

So am I saying it can't be done? No, not at all. It certainly can be done but the change needed is far more drastic - a move to a very strong libertarian Parliament. Devolve far more power to the states (and possibly encourage the NT to become one) and make Canberra a meeting place not of professional politicians but of dedicated citizen legislators. With devolution of many Commonwealth powers and responsibilities to the state governments there'd be less to do in Canberra, and Parliamentarians might need to meet only one or two days a week. Eventually it might be possible to condense it down to a few days a month. This would not only be easier on parents of either underwear but would probably be far less of a big deal for them to bring their kids into the chamber - most of the important decisions won't be taken in there anyway but in the state capitals. Better yet, not only would it attract parents who want to be able to stay close to their children and serve their country, the loss of power and prestige that goes with it would be a disincentive to the sort of pricks common to national governments the world over for whom the power and prestige is the big draw.

Yes, I have been re-reading The Plan and shamelessly stolen from it. But if it happened then there'd rarely be a need to send Senator Hanson-Young's daughter out of the room, and indeed all Parliamentarians would be better able to plan their effectively part time political jobs with their needs as parents. Wouldn't that be an improvement?