The Angry Exile: Mixing issues.

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

Tuesday 20 July 2010

Mixing issues.

Over at The Age Dick Gross asks a strange question:

What do heroin and female genital mutilation have in common?

Since I've strong opinions on both the answer had to be worth a read, even if I was a little worried about what it would turn out to be.

Not much at first blush but they share one controversial attribute – both heroin and female genital mutilation are the subject of ferocious harm minimisation debates.

When we despise something, we generally react with prohibition. But there are certain practices that do not lend themselves to prohibition and so a ban causes more damage than good.

True. Go on.

Prohibitionists inevitably command the high moral ground in any debate about something we detest. On issues from crime to drugs to Paleolithic religious practices, critics line up to compete about who can get the most cross. Prohibition is simple. It most directly expresses outrage and opposition. When we find something repugnant, outrage is what we really want to see expressed in public discourse. So we see bidding wars on who can evince the most anger:

"I hate (crime/drugs/object of detestation)."

"I don't just hate (object of detestation), I deplore (object of detestation) and I believe all purveyors of (object of detestation) should be jailed."

"That's nothing. I believe anyone caught anywhere near (object of detestation) should be impaled."

"That's nothing. I despise (object of detestation) so much that I reckon (insert your own dire consequence)."

You get the picture. The vilification of the heroin or mutilation or whatever is so pronounced that no rational argument is easy or even possible.

Sorry to interrupt but a rational argument against prohibition of [insert issue here] may well be possible. The problem is simply that many people don't want to listen rationally.

If there is evidence that prohibition has failed or even exacerbated harm, that evidence does not receive sustaining oxygen as the vigilantes pounce to condemn not only the problem but those who might promote a non-punitive response. So we see with heroin, where murderous harm comes not so much from the drug but from the prohibition that condemns users to unsupported pariah status and makes their suppliers move into the violent shadows of criminality. The flow of blood in Mexico's borderlands is a hideous example of the counterproductive effects of a crap form of regulation.

Couldn't agree more, DG, but surely you aren't going to claim the same applies to female circumcision? Well, sorta kinda.

There, my self-protective rave is out of the way. I cannot abide even the thought of female genital mutilation (FGM). Genital cutting is something I would wish on no one (although I have been cut myself without memorable trauma).

Glad to hear that you are opposed to the practice, even though your own experience didn't damage you. However, couple of points there. First, presuming that you're referring to the ritual circumcision of Jewish male babies, naturally you can't miss what for all practical purposes you never had, so providing the op isn't stuffed up - which can and does happen now and then - of course it's done you no harm. But does that justify the process? Would you approve of cosmetic procedures such as tattoos or piercings on a week old infant on the basis that it's safe and will not have, to use your words, memorable trauma? The fact is that there will be memorable trauma for an unfortunate few and the rest of you can never know if you've lost out. Only men who have been circumcised as consenting adults can answer that, not those who were forced to undergo the procedure as un-consenting infants. The second, and far more obvious point, is that there is a large difference between male and female circumcision, and your experience as a circumcised male may not be analogous.

And that's not the only problem I have with Gross's thinking on this.

... please open your mind if you can. Notwithstanding the revulsion we all feel at the reports we read of this barbarism, there might be a solution other than prohibition. It takes a certain courage to move beyond simplistic prohibition in the interests of the victims.

I have been involved in several harm minimisation proposals, from heroin use to street sex work. I have lost most of these battles for many reasons. But it seems to me that people generally prefer a punitive approach on these issues. Evidence-based solutions, such as safe injecting rooms and safe precincts for street sex workers, are thrown aside in horror and in error. However, we must seek the best for the victims, regardless of our desire to magic away evil in the world.

Oh dear. Yes, a lot of people do prefer, even demand, prohibition and punitive action to, well, not to put too fine a point on it, to a few minutes of rational fucking thought. And yes, this is why most governments in western nations still stick to the tried and tested policy of prohibiting drugs, despite the fact that the results of the trying and testing is decades of epic failure and that every dinner party argument suggested to support prohibition applies as much to the glass of wine the prohibitionist usually has in front of them. And yes, all this leads to evidence based solutions being ignored. I'm with you on all of that.

But, and it's a bloody monster of a but, does all that apply as well to female genital mutilation (I'm no more a fan of using an acronym to hide the 'mutilation' elephant in the room than I am a fan of the practice itself)? I'd say it doesn't and for the same reason as some of the commenters over at The Age, which is that there's a world of difference between accepting that prohibition of drugs does more harm than good and applying the same reasoning to setting about a child's crotch with sharp implements. That difference hinges on two things: the presence of an identifiable victim and the fact that their consent has not only not been given but it hasn't even been sought.

I've tried for several hours to make this point in the comments at The Age but the bloody thing's playing up, so I'm going to give up and paste what I've tried to post there here instead.

There's a huge difference between the argument for ending drug prohibition and that of allowing limited female genital mutilation. It's not just a case that both would reduce harm, which might well be true, and so therefore we should no longer punish either. I can see the pragmatic argument but I feel it misses another aspect entirely. Taking heroin or any other drug is, in itself, a victimless crime. There may be associated crime (at least some of which would probably vanish with legalisation), as there is with alcohol, but if you want to stick coke up your nose or heroin in your veins why should it not be your choice providing you can do so without harming or stealing from anyone else, just like it is with booze? Does that apply to female genital mutilation? In short, no. Taking drugs is a victimless crime, or at least it could be if legalised. That Dick Gross talks of moving "beyond simplistic prohibition in the interests of the victims" concedes that FGM is *not* a victimless crime. And it's hard to see how it could ever become a victimless crime when no matter how much it's minimised it necessarily means an intimate and medically unnecessary procedure on someone without their consented. In that respect the discussions of female genital mutilation and drugs are not at all comparable. The last point that DG makes, that prohibition will fail, is a strawman. DG's correct but continued prohibition of rape and child abuse won't eradicate those either. Should we then agree - with great reluctance, natch - to copping a quick feel and other minor sexual assaults, and stuff the rights of those victims, if in turn rape etc was reduced? It'd be no different to allowing little nicks of infant girls' genitals.

It may be true that this small concession will lead to a diminishing of this hideous practise, and incidentally I'm with Dick Gross that it's at least as much cultural as religious (as shown by its occurrence in some Christian nations) but the price would be to sanction many generations of victims to come. Even if it could be reduced to something as harmless (arguably and usually) as circumcision of male infants, is that a price we should pay? Or should we treat it as what it is - an unnecessary assault on a child too young and helpless to give consent or offer resistance, and worthy of a very hefty prison sentence?

I don't think I need to repeat myself to say where I stand.