The Angry Exile: Empty gesture politics

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, 19 May 2011

Empty gesture politics

It's hard to defend Australia from charges of tobacco fascism from Pat Nurse when their latest move is to ban smoking on the beach - not littering fag ends in the sand, which I could understand, but simply the act of smoking - but I'm going to give it a brief go. It certainly sounds like it, and I'd agree the intent might even fit...

The new local law will affect the thousands of people who flock to the beaches, with those caught smoking facing fines of $200. It has been welcomed by Quit Victoria, which said public bans were critical in ''de-normalising'' smoking.

Oh, that de-normalising thing again. Yeah, maybe a bit more than "might". But I'd say that in reality this is the worst kind of gesture politics. The empty kind. Because this is not really a new ban but a local council with a bit of beach copying existing bans in other bayside council areas.

SMOKING is set to be banned on every Melbourne beach from Altona to Elwood, after Hobsons Bay Council became the third Victorian municipality to ban beachgoers from lighting up.
[...]
It is expected the new law will be in place before summer, with the council needing to prepare a community impact statement and accept submissions before it is voted on again.
The City of Port Phillip, which stretches from Port Melbourne to Elwood introduced similar laws along its beaches last summer, while the Surf Coast Shire banned smoking in 2008 in a Victorian first.

And we should be impressed? Wave the magic wand of a ban and the problem just vanishes in a puff of legislation, right? Do me a fucking favour. Port Philip Council still has to sift the sands of St Kilda beach at dawn every summer morning and even weekly this time of year for everything from cigarette butts and litter to used condoms and syringes. Syringes, for Christ's sake. And we're expected to think that Hobson's Bay is going to have some big crackdown on smokers when the ban comes in? Not a fucking chance. Did Port Philip? Did Surf Coast? Maybe, but I doubt it, and even if they did it wasn't for long. Come on, what chance is there that it'll be different in Hobson's Bay? And what chance it'll work even if they do? When has it not been illegal to shoot up on the beach? For-fucking-ever, and yet the syringes still end up on St Kilda beach for Port Philip to pick up every morning.

This is theatre, grandstanding, and come the elections late next year something for incumbent local pollies to point to as something they "did" for the community, conflating activity and accomplishment in that way politicians so often do. Yes, it's picking on a minority group too, but mostly it's bullshit, a sop to appeal to non-smoking yuppies in $750,000 McMansions within shouting distance of the beaches. Ban what ever the fuck you want, fellas, but if you don't have the resources to hire some tobacco gauleiters to patrol the beach all day and all night you're going to find, just like Port Philip have, that in a couple of years you'll still be hiring people to pick up cigarette butts and whatever shit there is that's annoying people today. Responsible smokers, such as ones who bring their own ashtrays with them, will obey your new rules and bugger off somewhere else with their money - if they can afford $15 or more for a pack of legal smokes they can't be doing badly and if they're buying chop-chop at a fraction of that they're saving enough elsewhere - while the irresponsible ones will simply ignore them. You could have hired a litter warden or two and fined people a couple of hundred bucks for dropping their butts in the sand, and the irresponsible ones would have soon noticed that those smart enough to bring their own ashtrays or walk to a public one weren't being harassed. A few dollars for a pocket ashtray or a couple of hundred for a littering fine? It's a no brainer. Instead you're going to have to accept that people who smoke on the beach at night and early on when they have it to themselves are soon going to realise that this is an unenforceable law and carry on as before.

Is it fascism? Maybe a little because it'll drive out the reasonable smokers who just want a quiet life, but without anything more than a piece of legislation and a wish it's fascism-lite at worst. Australia may wish people didn't smoke and dreams of being able to wave the problem away (probably with the usual theatrical coughing the smokophobes like to do - I'm sure that's bad for your throat and you should probably stop) and so it makes their lives difficult. But it doesn't really want people to stop because it needs the billions in tobacco taxes and their Big Pharma friends who sell that nice, safe nicotine in gum and patches need smokers under pressure to give up so that there's a market for their products.

Fascism? Only in the fantasies of the most foam-mouthed smokophobes. Big Pharma and their government pals have balance sheets to worry about, and it's in neither of their interests for all the smokers to actually stop. There's not going to be any kicking in of smokers' doors, there won't be any kind of tobacco Kristallnacht. And there won't even be much real effort to enforce any local bylaws that are passed.

This is an empty gesture that will prove as hollow as it sounds. Go to the Hobson's Bay foreshore at dawn on a summer's day in a couple of years' time to count cigarette butts and see if I'm wrong.