The Angry Exile: Denormalisation.

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

Thursday 2 July 2009

Denormalisation.

An Orwellian sounding word if ever I heard one, and if the Devil is right I reckon will be heard more and more in the UK as the government's war against it's own citizens' freedoms continues. The Devil focusses on smokers, drinkers and fatties but let's be blunt, it won't end there. Not with a word like denormalisation being used to describe the process. Anything that doesn't meet the government decreed definition of normal is a target, simple as that, and once something is considered to be un-normal it begins. And when you think of it in those terms you realize that denormalistion, recent though the term may be, is a process that's been going on for quite a while. What are now illegal drugs were once legal to own and use was largely left to individuals, but since they were never that widespread they were easily denormalised and banned. This took place before I was even born. The denormalisation of private gun ownership in the UK goes back further still, roughly to the time of my grandfather and great grandfather. Here in Australia bikie gangs are a target of denormalisation, though I've not heard it called that. The principle is the same, however: most normal people are not in bikie gangs, therefore bikie gangs are not normal, therefore freedom of association can be dispensed with.

I think in many respects the UK is probably further down this slippery slope to the almost complete loss of individual freedom, and it'll always be harder to enforce in a country like Australia with large relatively unpopulated areas. Smoking for example - I don't know if it happens but where there may be outback pubs hundreds of miles from the nearest cop I wouldn't be surprised if the ban is quietly ignored when it doesn't suit. In the cities some bastard would probably dob them in, which I find a little sad as it doesn't live up to the mental image I had of Australia and its people before I made the move here. But compared to the UK? Where an army of busybodies, paid for by the long suffering and repetitively fucked taxpayers, have been hired to police the ban. Where even children are recruited to serve as "eyes and ears" of the citizens' masters in town halls and ultimately Westminster and Brussels. Where the legal mechanisms for the Big Brother state are largely in place, where vast numbers of citizens' DNA - including that of children and even babies - is kept on record despite never having been found guilty of a crime. Where there are now millions of CCTV cameras monitoring the populace (it's recognised that they have almost fuck all effect on crime). By comparison the control freaks of Australia are rank amateurs. They need to be watched if you ask me, but not as much as we need to watch Europe in general and the UK in particular. I'm afraid that's the model that many supposedly democratic governments want to follow. I hope the British people wake up in time to pull back from the Orwellian brink that the country is teetering on, but faling that the people of other countries should take whatever happens there as a warning.

When they came for the gun owners,
I remained silent;
I did not own a gun.

Then they came for the drug users,
I remained silent;
I did not take any drugs.

Then they came for the smokers,
I did not protest;
I did not smoke.

Then they came for the drinkers,
I did not speak out;
I was never much of a drinker.

Then they came for the bikies,
I said nothing;
I was not a bikie.

When eventually they came for me,
nobody spoke out;
there was no one left to speak out for me.