The Angry Exile: Burqa bans, redux.

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

Burqa bans, redux.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman has been reported as having said that wearing a burqa can be empowering, which hasn't won her many fans.

The remarks by Caroline Spelman, who as Environment Secretary is the second most powerful woman in the Cabinet, were described as “moronic” and “bizarre”. She is also likely to face anger from backbench Tory MPs, some of whom have called for the wearing of burkas to be banned outside the private home.

Oh, great. A bunch of backbench fucktards who think that letting people make fewer choices for themselves increases their freedom. What wonderful quality the Tory party have managed to recruit.

Critics of the ban have argued that while they do not like to see women covering their faces, particularly if forced to do so by male relatives, legislation is heavy-handed and contrary to the principle of freedom of expression.

Quite. Write it down a cricket bat and twat those backbench Tories across the eyes with it.

But Mrs Spelman suggested that wearing the burka could be seen as a feminist statement.
She claimed that a visit to Afghanistan had persuaded her that “the burka confers dignity”.

Oh dear. No, Caroline, I'm not sure it does, and I'm not sure you get it. Wearing one doesn't give a woman dignity, which is somewhat subjective anyway, and is not a feminist statement. However, a woman telling the government to fuck off and mind its own business because she's capable of deciding for herself can be, though it's important not to confuse that independence of thought with simply dressing up like a cross between Demis Roussos and a Ninja.

“I’ve been out to Afghanistan and I think I understand much better as a result … why a lot of Muslim women want to wear the burka."

Oh, this is going to be good.

“For them, the burka confers dignity, it’s their choice, they choose to go out dressed in a burka."

Some, perhaps, but I suspect we're hiding from something here, aren't we, Caroline? Many of them want to wear it because they'll get the shit kicked out of them, or worse, if they don't. I'm all for women who genuinely want to put the bloody thing on being free to do so, but let's not fucking kid ourselves.

Still, I'll give her this, she's not a complete fucking idiot.

"I understand that it is a different culture from mine but the fact is in this country women want to be free to choose … whether or not to go out in the morning wearing a burka.”

I'm not sure if by "this country" she was referring to the UK but I'm going to assume she is, and if so she's at least got this right. Women do want to be able to choose, and most will choose not to wear it. Banning it might help a few, always assuming the men in their families don't simply keep them inside, but, as I've blogged before, what it will certainly do is take the freedom of choice away from all women. That, I'm afraid, makes the state no better than the misogynists who'd prefer women to be veiled in case the sight of a female face makes them overcome with the need for a wank or whatever it is they're worried about.

And then along comes Nigel Farage, echoing the backbench Tories.

But Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independent Party, said: “Wearing a burka seriously diminishes a woman’s life chances in 21st century Britain – to describe it as somehow empowering is simply moronic.
“It was a thoroughly extraordinary and deeply ignorant comment for Caroline Spelman, a Government minister, to make.”

Again, and in words of as few syllables as I can, you can't increase freedom by ~~legislating~~ making laws to ban things. Bans always mean less freedom, not more. Why is it so hard to get this across? Why do intelligent people who oppose the smoking ban on the very reasonable grounds that responsible adults should be allowed to choose find it so difficult to apply the same rationale to a form of clothing they really dislike? Yes, I'd love it if every woman currently made to wear a burqa cast them off at the same time and showed their pride in their bodies and their contempt for the men that hid them under tarpaulins by doing, well, something like this.

H/T to The Filthy Engineer

But just as you can lead a horse to water but can't force it to drink it's impossible to empower women, or men for that matter, or make them free by forcing them to conform to your definitions of empowerment and freedom. That's not empowerment or freedom, it's just a more refined form of tyranny. And as far as I'm concerned you can fucking keep it.

1 comment:

Angry Exile said...: I reckon that if you got all the current and former government ministers to stand in a group and then threw a rock at them you could probably say that about whichever one it hit. Plus hitting them with a rock would probably make you feel better about it.; 23 July 2010 at 13:37