In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

  • Where You Live

    This poem was finished on the day of Joe Biden’s Inauguration, January 20th  2021. It does not have the glitter and panache of Amanda Gorman’s poem recited on that day, but I think it carries a great deal of the relief so many of us will have felt on receiving Biden’s clear signals that sense, sanity and integrity were back at the helm, at least on America’s side of the Atlantic.

    The poem has its origins far from Washington, though, at least geographically. It followed a short conversation I had with a near-neighbour who’s Canadian and remembers a view of the Canadian Rockies clearly important to her at an earlier time of her life. Our conversation took place in England, just outside our respective houses here, but within sight of some low Welsh hills to the west. It was my neighbour who made the connection between those hills we could see and her distant mountains which she saw beyond.

    Joe Biden’s inauguration as President of the United States has enormous significance for all of us, wherever we might live. Just so, truth is our home everywhere.

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  • So where have we got to, so far, in 2021 ?

     

    So where have we got to, so far, in the year 2021 ?  Locked in, locked down, sundered from outer family – again. And everywhere, the virus and its effects, spreading yet further, pressing wider and deeper.  The masked face, still – and ever increasingly – the image of our time. In the US, a few days ago, that enormous nation’s hoodlum head of state, unmasked but covered over in a cloud of orange make-up, lies and self-worship, ordered the storming of democracy and was joyfully obeyed by his natural constituency, supported still by a large number of the Republican party, self-serving and dishonourable. In the UK, we have stumbled into the mad miasma of our Brexit future, covered in our own thick cloud of puerile mop-headed lies (“call me Boris”). History races on, in 2021.

    There is so much to say, so many people saying it, some very well. What’s the point of adding yet more words here ?

    I just need to comment on the phoney debate that has now opened up in America (but it goes on in the UK as well), following the banning – at long last and far too late – of Trump’s use of Twitter. It has been his principle means of spreading lies, malevolent fantasies and incitement to mayhem, unchecked and unrestrained, for the last four years and more.

    So, just a few days before he is due to hand over the presidency, the direct and unmediated connection between Trump and his ardent following has finally been broken. His son and fellow-hoodlums in the Republican Party, still lurking in his slipstream, perk up. They voice “moral” indignation. They reach for the Constitution and seek to wrap and disguise themselves in those grand and ringing old words. The First Amendment. The right to Freedom of Speech. Forget the storming of the Capitol, they cry. What’s the country coming to, if freedom of speech is curtailed in this way ?

    But what is freedom of speech ? What does it mean ? Does it mean licence to say whatever you like, however poisonous ? Licence to lie ? Does it mean licence deliberately to obscure, distort, replace the truth, without any responsibility for the effects and consequences of your masking, your desecration, of the facts ?

    And to go one step further : what is speech itself ? To answer that question adequately cannot be done in brief, even if I were qualified to take it on. But one aspect of the answer seems essential to me and I feel duty-bound to keep pushing it. Speech – the words we say and hear in our meetings and transactions one with another – exists as a currency, just like money, a means of exchange. And inter-action through speech is foundational to all human societies, above all to democratic societies, at least as much as coinage is foundational, maybe even more so. For just as, without a sound coinage, our society would become dysfunctional and tend to break down, so the words we use and share have to be trustworthy, honourable and of true value. I don’t mean we all have to be right at all times. But I do mean we have to be basically honest in service to the truth. Otherwise, social breakdown will follow, as it did in Washington, last week.

    I think this equating of language to coinage, seeing them as currencies equally basic to our wellbeing, is exact, not fanciful, even though money has a tendency to be measured as a quantity, speech more to do with quality.

    Issues of quantity can be easier to measure than those of quality – and also easier to address. But how we address financial misconduct might reveal to us how better to measure, address and repudiate the abuse of our free speech.

    In terms of money, abusive or anti-social behaviour comes under a wide range of titles, each seen as a crime under the law : fraud, forgery, cheating, theft. And Society is clear on how to view and what to do with citizens caught engaging in these abuses. We agree in seeing and punishing them as felons. We have a whole legal system ready to try them in court and, if they are found guilty, to punish them in various established ways.

    And I say without hesitation that for any holder of public office to use his/her position deliberately to mislead the public, through words, for that person’s personal advantage, he or she has committed a crime no less material than any of those cited in the previous paragraph. In fact all those crime definitions are equally applicable in this case. For a politician to lie to people in order falsely to win their support is precisely an act of fraud, and of forgery, and of cheating, and of theft – theft in broad daylight., brazen and unashamed. A sovereign people, or the representatives of that people, cannot make the major and hugely difficult decisions required of them in a complex world unless they are “properly informed.”

    In the UK, the sixth of Lord Nolan’s “Seven Principles of Conduct in Public Life”, says very simply : ”Holders of Public Office should be truthful.”  Mr Johnson, (“call me Boris”) our present Prime Minister, calls those principles “precious” even while he ignores the sixth one on a serial basis.

    Mr Johnson can afford to do so, because the principles are toothless, especially so long as Mr Johnson himself, as Prime minister, is left responsible for their implementation (Mr Johnson is on public record as having been sacked twice in the past for lying – an outrageous record which should debar him from public office of any kind).

    That is why, here in the UK, I support Plaid Cymru and Compassion in Politics in their campaigns to make lying in politics illegal. Mr Johnson cannot be left as final arbiter of ethical political behaviour when Mr Johnson’s only gauge and measure of what is right is his own immediate self-interest, whatever the cost to others.

    And that is why, over there in the USA, Mr Trump has not been deprived of free speech at all. Belatedly, he has been deprived of his power to abuse free speech and his fellow-Americans, stealing from them the truth, brazenly abusing his office and his nation in doing so. Yes, free speech is the sacred right of all of us. But it is a temple vulnerable to desecration. It needs protecting from the likes of Mr Trump and our Mr Johnson and their respective dodgy acolytes. There are in fact too many of the likes of Mr Trump and Mr Johnson prominent in our times. They are low felons. We need to stop voting low felons into power. Too many of us seem to prefer their lies and their self-worship to our reality. We need to cure ourselves of that deadly mistake. And we need to name, shame and penalise these liars.

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  • A Severed Edge

    In the rush and flood of falsity and ill-doing that enter and surround our everyday lives, among all the mis-steps and momentous errors born of that rush and that falsity, I keep returning to certain physical landmarks that at least give the appearance of standing firm and of meaning something worth standing for.

    One such landmark is St Aldhelm’s chapel. It has been standing at the top of a Dorset cliff for almost ten centuries. By definition, it is precarious, yet endures. Its door stays open. It faces south towards France.

    And almost ten years ago, I scattered some of my mother all round it. Her ashes flew up into the wind and out over the sea. She and I both belong there.

    And from time to time, I give poetry readings in the chapel. It’s like reciting in a cave. But you are not just reading to your present small audience in this cave. The place is full of living shadows from the past, full of meanings and memories from all and any time. So poem selection has to be strict. Each has to pass a stern test beforehand. Will it belong in there ? Will it sing in harmony with the song the place is already singing ?

    The last time I read in the chapel, the British nation had already lurched into the nonsense valley-of-the-shadow we call – just as nonsensically – Brexit. And early in the reading, I made reference to that disastrous mis-step and ill-doing on the part of my nation, by reading a poem that spoke as if from the chapel to the continent of which we are part, here so close across a narrow strip of sometimes stormy grey water.

    You can say that, this present week-end, we might be coming towards one of the many nonsense heads of that nonsense valley-of-the-shadow. Or is it tails ? That is why I have uploaded the poem here today, with the picture of the rough and lonely little building in which it was first recited.

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  • Across the Way

    “The Reader” is a national charity.

    “From its global Shared Reading movement, to its Calderstones Park home in Liverpool… “The Reader” builds lively communities that bring people together and books to life.” And my project “Poems for…the wall” and “The Reader” are exploring ways we might collaborate a bit.

    In the meantime, one of “The Reader’s many projects is to broadcast people reading selected short poems. Last week-end was my turn and I had been asked to read one of my own poems. “Across the Way” is set in a healthcare waiting room. My partner Nicola held the phone/camera incredibly steady. Here’s the link : https://www.thereader.org.uk/lines-by-heart-from-across-the-way-by-rogan-wolf/

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  • A Letter to my MP

     

     

    My local MP is new to politics, was recently a lawyer and is a Tory. The following is a copy of a letter I sent to that person quite recently. (I have had a reply since, which I found of no account, and I shall not bother to reproduce it here). Now, this afternoon, our toy Prime minister Mr Johnson has headed off on his unicorn to wrest singlehandedly some fantasy Brexit grail from them foreigners and I am uploading this letter of mine as the best comment I can make on this bad dream.

    “I am writing to you as my MP, though not with any request. I do not share your politics but…. think that you would agree with me that, as an MP, you can benefit from hearing the views of all your constituents – not just those who support your own party.

    I am a poet and ex social worker. As poet, I run a project called “Poems for…the wall.” It has been going for 20 years and offers poems by many authors for display in places like schools and healthcare waiting rooms, free of charge. And as social worker, I used to run community centres in London for people with mental health problems.

    Perhaps as a result of that background, I tend to see psychology – how people tick – as being behind much of what happens in human affairs, including politics. And I find words important, and consider language to be a currency as fundamental to civilised society as money. And both currencies need to be sound and clean and trustworthy if our community is to stay afloat, vigorous, safe and fulfilling for our children. 

    So you will probably not be surprised to hear that I am finding life under Mr Johnson’s leadership quite onerous and disturbing. The nation has chosen to ignore his extraordinary record of being sacked twice for lying, as if dishonesty doesn’t matter. I am confused about many things, but clear on this : dishonesty does matter and a failure to tell the truth, on the part of an accountable politician (see Nolan Principle, number six) is an abuse of the common weal and a crime against a sovereign people. It is a crime on a level with theft and fraud, and, further, those who support a politician who lies are accessory to that crime. More recently, we have to take on board Mr Johnson’s willingness to break international law with his Internal Market Bill, thereby shaming and disgracing and further reducing this country, but winning his own MPs’ support in doing so, even the ex-lawyers among them. For me, these are times, not just of high anxiety, but of deep shame.

    [Since the letter was written, Mr Johnson has of course offered to withdraw the legislation that would have made Great Britain a rogue state. This lordly gesture no doubt impressed someone, maybe even my MP, who supported the legislation. But for me, the deep shame remains].

    I would like to leave you with these two links, both to posts on my blog. Each consists mostly of poetry. Here is the first :  https://roganwolf.com/2020/10/22/what-does-great-britain-stand-for-these-days/ The second is in a traditional English verse form called “rhyme royal,” and provides a commentary on the process by which this nation exited the EU : https://roganwolf.com/2020/10/22/words-for-the-earthquake/

    Yours sincerely,

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  • Message to Keir Starmer

    Dear Keir Starmer,

    I’m a Labour member and a strong supporter and admirer of your leadership. I am sending this email message – and will upload a copy on my blog – fully aware that there is no prospect that you will read it. But, maybe, one of your team will.

    I can see, of course, that a Brexit Deal would be better than a Brexit No Deal. But should Labour therefore actually support a Deal, (assuming that Johnson’s oven will eventually cough up some indigestible mess or other) ? Doing so would of course be seen and used as a statement of the Party’s support for Brexit, making it available to share the blame, when the true consequences at last hit home. This is an extremely difficult call to make. But I think that for Labour to support any Brexit at all would be both wrong and politically unwise.

    I don’t always agree with Alistair Campbell, but respect him ; he knows his way around and, writing recently on this issue, was at his most disciplined and impressive ; he was also simply right (his piece was in “The Independent” and may not be accessible to a non-member. But I recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it) : https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-boris-johnson-brexit-deal-b1763806.html

    And I agree wholeheartedly with Neil Kinnock here :  https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/04/neil-kinnock-backing-brexit-deal-politically-lethal-for-labour  Let Johnson and the Tories be made to own the disgrace and disaster they have brought on this country. They alone. That way lies the nation’s best hope of recovery.

    These two pieces make the points better than I can and with rather more authority. I would just add the following : Brexit is not really an argument at all, not a policy, not a strategy, not an answer, not a sustainable future.   It is delusion land, lie land, regressive escapism and scapegoating, a going rogue, out of which some dishonest or deluded politicians and press barons are seeking to make profit. Yet the nation is split on the issue, and Johnson is consequently Prime Minister, as if Brexit and “Global Britain” etc belong in the real world, the light of day, among the adults. Like Trumpism, they don’t. They are chaos running loose. And Labour should not engage with the present puerile “deal or no deal” theatricals, because doing so would just add to those shadows on the wall, those phantom shapes playing in the nursery, claiming to belong under the sun. Brexit will disappoint at best, deal or no deal. Then at last we shall meet reality, rather than continue to waste our energies arguing over a bunch of projected shadows. Let reality do the talking. And let Labour have its powder dry for when that reality has sunk in and people can see it for themselves, see the lie and the fraud and see the liars and the fraudsters. Then there will be work to do.

    One other thing. That “Red Wall” argument. Erstwhile Labour supporters have joined the delusion, bewitched by this Etonian pied piper, with his wearisome smirk and hair akimbo. And it is almost certainly they who will be hit hardest of all by Johnson’s wretched take-away Brexit wrapped in his fantasies. But Labour’s role is absolutely not to join this ghastly dance among the shadows. That would not be true “listening,” nor “Democracy.” It would simply be betrayal. Betrayal of the truth. Betrayal of what Labour really stands for. Betrayal of all its supporters.

    In conclusion, here’s a proposal I have made before : we have surely seen by now what the Lie can do, in the mouths of unworthy “leaders” like Trump and Johnson, felon chancers, leathery narcissists rising to the surface in these times of (highly justified) anxiety, when people are perhaps more prone than usual to follow the false. Let Labour make it policy for lying in politics to become illegal. The Nolan Principles are essentially toothless. Let at least the sixth principle be given teeth. There is no sufficient alternative and, post-Brexit, this would surely be a vote-winner.

    Best wishes

    Rogan Wolf

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  • Let’s Hear it from Janus on the Union

     

    The Roman god Janus had two heads, two faces. They are usually depicted as looking in opposite directions.

    And the UK has a Gaffe man and a lying Toad for Prime Minister. He says, “Call me Boris” but perhaps “Call me Janus” would ring a little truer. And those two heads are not only turned in opposite directions – all too often their voices are articulating opposite views both at the same time, both dishonest.

    And there he was with his two heads at Prime Minister’s Questions the other day, each head with its studiously unruly mop of straggly yellowness on top, speaking about the union of nations and the dangers of nationalism. Really ?

    He was talking to the Right Honourable Ian Blackford (SNP Leader at Westminster) and was referring with curious pride to his own time as Mayor of London. He said that, as Mayor of a devolved administration, he had focussed on the real priorities of the people of London – not on constitutional issues.

    Absolutely, Mr Toad. That’s just the ticket. Focus on the real priorities of the people. Constitutional issues aimed at severing union and bound to make co-operative action harder are an unforgiveable irrelevance and distraction, a mutual weakening of capacity. Absolutely, Mr Toad, our straggly Janus.

    And, still facing in a Scottish direction, this pro-union Toad went on to lecture the Right Honourable Blackford that what the UK does collectively is far far better that what it could do as a group of separate and competing nations. The union has shown its value and will continue to show it value, he said.

    Well, Mr Toad, you said it again. What any union of nations does collectively, what the European Union does collectively, is far far better than separate nations can ever do, acting alone.

    He’s so right, you know, Or is he right only in that northern-facing, Scottish direction ?

    And then the Toad said that the SNP would take Scotland back into the European Union ! Horrors ! What could be more appalling that to join a union of nearly 30 countries ? What a massive surrender of POWER, said another of those straggly Janus heads. You lose POWER when you join a Union, said the head.

    And little England will be squeezed in the middle, whispered another of Toad’s heads. All through history, being caught between France and Scotland has been one of little England’s nightmares.

    And the Right Honourable Keir Starmer seemed none too impressed with this Lying Toad, our fraud of a Prime Minister with his several straggly heads, each muddly and duplicitous. And the Right Honourable Keir Starmer asked across the dispatch box, do the collective straggly Toads opposite all not agree that, actually, Scotland needs more devolution, not less ?

    And one of the straggly heads declared that Tony Blair had admitted that devolution was a mistake, that Blair had not foreseen that nationalism, would rise up on the back of it. And who wants nationalism, said the straggly head ?

    We want nationalism said another head perched on the same body. But only our nationalism, not your nationalism. Only our union. Not your union. And our control. Not yours. And our POWER. Not yours. Nor Parliament’s. Nor the People’s. Not the British. Nor even the English.

    MINE, said Janus, speaking with one voice at last.

    Rule Britannia. Rule my Make-Believe Britannia. Rule Toad’s Britannia. The chaotic and shameless immorality of Toad’s Toyland.

     

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  • What a Funny Time to say Goodbye to the Chaos Maistro

     

    So now, suddenly, it’s off with his head, the maestro, that shiny hate-filled spear-head of Brexit. He conducted his own removals, exiting through the front door of course, in full view of the cameras, delivering insult to the last. Not so long ago, a raucous parrot I know, a “bird of paradise” who insists on the liberty to speak, had some short, sharp comments to make on that genius familar perched on Mr Johnson’s shoulder (without whom our Mr Toadie thought he could not do). Here below are six of them (and they even rhyme) :

     
 
 

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