The Angry Exile: Violence as a first choice

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

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Violence as a first choice

While I understand Dragon's Den dragon and entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne's concern over tweets that apparently threaten his daughter, it's interesting that his first reaction was to solicit a violent response.

I offer £25,000 reward for the capture of the coward who calls himself @YuriVasilyev_
Double if his arms are broken first

This, let's remember, is someone who spent 18 months in a military prison for trying to throw an officer off a jetty. Now let's be fair about it, he was reacting to someone demanding money with menaces - £35,000 to "stop us hurting your Hollie Bannatyne" - and it's probably something that most fathers would understand and probably envy Bannatyne's deep pockets giving him the ability to make good on it. Fair enough too, if he'd just left it at the first line. But if the bonus for delivering the perpetrator with arms pre-broken, whether to render him helpless and facilitate further punishment or just as part of the retribution, was meant seriously does it say something about Bannatyne's character? To me it seems less like a TV entrepreneur and more like a, well, I don't know but the opening scene from The Godfather, the one where the guy asks Marlon Brando to have his daughter's attackers filled in, keeps popping into my head. Perhaps similar thoughts occurred to Bannatyne because it seems that the tweet didn't stay up long before it was changed for one that involved a more usual concept of justice.

The self-made millionaire quickly removed the post from his Twitter page, replacing it with another message promising "£30,000 reward for info leading to his arrest".

Still, as I said at the start I find it interesting that the initial reaction didn't mention arrest or hint at police, but instead used the word "capture" and offered extra for broken arms. And the other thing to remember about Bannatyne is he's a reformed smoker, one of the zealot variety, and publicly expresses his loathing for smokers fairly regularly. He's president of No Smoking Day and would happily see smoking banned altogether.

I’ll only be happy if smoking is banned
We should no longer tolerate the minority threatening the lives of the majority.

And we've seen how Bannatyne reacts when confronted with something he finds intolerable. Of course threats to his family, if serious, really are intolerable and I hope that whoever threatened his daughter is caught, charged and convicted - if they also happen to suffer a couple of broken bones while trying to escape arrest or something then that's their problem. But the thought occurs that if you're a smoker it might be a good idea not to light up if Bannatyne or his daughter are in the vicinity, just in case it turns out to be bad for your health.