We note a rising panic on our street on behalf of Remain. Apparently the Labour faithful are not responding to the cool economic arguments Remain has orchestrated. Down with Them Foreigners – that’s the winning one. Our sceptred isle is now encircled and infiltrated by loadsa terrorists and criminals and other high-speed novelties and bewilderments, all swimming about like sharks. That’s the one. Let us and our corrupted press fight, fight, and fight again to protect our truth-free comfort zone.

I wonder if I am unusual in finding it hard to engage in all this.

I think the main reason for my difficulty is that this referendum has no meaning or integrity of its own. It was imposed on us as a frivolous Cameron ploy and party-trick. Years ago he forced it into all our diaries to deflect some die-hard Tory MP’s and supporters from the allure of UKIP.  The re-opening of the EU membership question, this dreary wound, was just temporarily useful for Davie-boy’s own party-political ends, to buy him a bit more time in power.

Since then, the whole of Europe has been made to perform to the bogus self-interested Davie-boy script,  while he engaged them in his photo-shoot charade of a “re-negotiation.” And now it’s the UK electorate’s turn to join the charade. And just look at the murk and poison welling to the surface as the various players in this ghastly referendum “debate” call in the whirl-wind to aid their various purposes and dodgy motivations.

Of course, it is crucial that we “Remain.” But it is hard to say so with real conviction, to engage whole-heartedly, knowing that Davie-boy set up this whole predicament and uncertainty, this baiting of the untameable, without regard for the interests of the country at large. Whatever the result of our unnecessary referendum, he should be punished for his action in bringing us here so irresponsibly, along with so many other actions of his that are equally inexcusable and unforgivable.

In the next few years, might it suit Boris’ or Georgie-boy’s interests or personal ambitions to call a referendum on whether England’s shires should separate and stand alone against the tide of modern life and its uncertainties? Or how about resurrecting the armed borders of Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria, Wessex ?  Might President Rump find it worth his personal while to hold a referendum on the de-unification of the United States ?

Although I know that, in terms of consequences, this issue – despite Davie-boy –  is deadly serious, neither “side”of the UK referendum debate commands my respect or loyalty. No vision is being offered that can fire or inspire. Many of the arguments used or topics chosen by each side seem specious, contrived and mean-spirited. Often they are deliberately misleading and/or manipulative. Flagrant lies are offered up as arguments and it is these lies that seem to be winning over a growing number of the electorate.

This is not a real debate, in fact. It is just a bunch of sleek, dishonest, rapacious rude-boys engaged in a street fight, using the weapons that are familiar to them and characteristic of them. They excuse it as “the rough and tumble of politics.” Just a jolly good dust-up. Like football hooligans in expensive grey suits.  And are their amoral techniques not also the characteristic weaponry of a certain gentleman from deep down under, Lynton Crosby, OBE, spiritual advisor to the Head Rude-boy of Blingland himself ? Is he to be seen off, at the last, by his own weapons used against him ? And what rough beast will then follow him into the empty, silent chamber ?

However it concludes, the referendum seems significant chiefly in showing us how plain frightened, reduced, muddled and essentially leaderless we are and what a mess we have made of “Democracy” and “Free Speech” – these words we flag up as reasons to be proud of ourselves and of our systems, somehow justifying Western assumptions of superior virtue.

For is the way the EU debate is being conducted in the UK any cause for pride and belief in our way of life and governance, any inspiration to our youth ? On the contrary. It is cause for despair, exhaustion and disgust.

But through all the fog, the unworthiness, the lies, the dishonour, one thing seems clear. I have no doubt that we need to remain, and will suffer badly if we do not, for one simple but over-riding reason.

And this is that “leaving ” means the creation of a new frontier, and hence yet more division. Yet more Them and Us, when already there is so much Them and Us. Frontiers perpetuate division. Another “Them” to blame. Another “Them” to fear. It is the wrong direction to go in. Even Davie-boy, who has done so much in this country to re-open and encourage Them/Us, knows that here is one prospective division and frontier too many.

And of course, once started, the fracturing and splintering will continue. UK out of Europe, will mean Scotland severed from England, in order not to follow this cross-eyed Tory dance. And then Wales ? Ireland ?

Islands become islets.

Conversation and debate become howl and no-go.

You become one of Them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We perch on this bright speck in the universe

yet poison it

 

reach out for the truth

yet poison the truth

 

partake of God

yet poison our godliness

 

were made one of another

yet poison one other.

 

In the cause of Self

and poisoning all Other

 

we have only

poisoned ourselves.

 

Rogan Wolf

May 2016

It’s as if the landscape

has gathered you into its arms

making you

not just welcome here

but whole.

It has reached out and found

you where you alone

could not. You are never lost

among these contours.

They map your interior.

You are discovered here.

 

Rogan Wolf, April 2016

I saw a man the other day

to my surprise

suspended from a single dot

floating in the sky.

He was attached to it

by hands and feet

nailed through. He looked

dreadfully contorted.

Perhaps the dot had fallen off

some broken line or other.

It drifted past on the wind

the expression on the man’s face

indescribable. I shouted

up to him

is this the second coming

or just another day

of human history ?

His eyes rested on me

and my heart rose.

 

© Rogan Wolf, Easter 2016

The last Emperor of Constantinople is still wandering Europe, hiding in huts and caves, bedding down beside the motorways, seeking cover, night after night, beside our continent’s frontiers all dressed out these days in barbed wire.

Perhaps he seeks a new city, a new way of being, a way worthy of our race ; or maybe he has simply given up on cities, houses and routine, and nowadays has no destination in his dreams, just movement and fellowship.

Not so long ago, he could be found on a hill-top in Mallorca, drawn to some medieval battlements on a hill (see the film near the top of the home page here, on the right).

More recently, he has appeared in Piedmont in the north of Italy. A website called Margutte, run by a group of people who live in the Piedmontese town of Mondovì, has just uploaded excerpts from my poems about the emperor, in English and Italian, and has linked to the text of the whole series, in its pdf form. An interview with me, in writing, is also included.  Here is a link to the emperor’s posting on the site. And for the text of the whole poem-series again, click on the title :  Travels of the Last Emperor

What would happen if the Emperor carried on eastward towards Istanbul ? Might he ever walk those streets again ?  Might he be seen or heard there ?

 

 

We have government by massage,
manipulation, lie.
It attacks the body politic.
We watch and we comply.
Power is its only purpose
deceit its only skill
the electorate just putty
for moulding to its will.

Our “leaders” claim the right to rule
through winning our consent
their means of winning foul
their ways of winning bent.
Some intentions they hide
others they pervert
an election just another way
to defraud the electorate.

They keep their small majority
through daily tricks and lies
and by stoking fear and fantasy
in a people they despise.
Some chose them for promises
they broke overnight
yet still they preen in power
as if by legal right.

Democracy is founded
upon honour at heart.
A state that cheats its people
is illegitimate.

The proper place is jail
for a leadership that lies ;
Not “Minister,” “criminal”
the title that applies.

The heart of our community
lies tortured in defeat.
Outlaws kick the corpse aside.
It is outlaws rule our street.

Rogan Wolf, November 2015

For the record, I was one of those who joined the Labour Party after the UK election of last May. Soon after that, I voted for Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party and Tom Watson as Deputy.

I think that what is happening in the Labour Party is a sorry and miserable mess, but also by far the most creative thing going on in UK politics at present. We are in much greater danger from the present government of the disguised Far Right with its certainties and dis-honesties and treacheries and lies, its denial of and contempt for community and trust, than we are from Labour’s present turmoil and confusion. And there is far more hope of a coherent shape emerging from the Progressive Left that is both honourable and sufficient for present times, than there is from the hooligan crew of sleek PR deceivers presently running this nation. Their way leads to our destruction, and also their own.

And, for the record, this is what I replied in answer to Corbyn’s e-mailed round-robin, requesting views on joining the bombing war on ISIS :

“Thank you for your message.

I agree with the position you have taken.

Yes, ISIS have to be fought and defeated. They make nonsense of being human. They make only monstrosity. It seems they exist precisely to make nonsense and monstrosity of pretty well everything.

But by massing together and bombing them from on high, the western forces have chosen the best possible way of merely adding to the power, appeal and threat of ISIS. It is not an army as such. It can’t be bombed away from on high, as if in some computer game. Just restricted for now, at best. Unable to centre itself in a particular place, it will just scatter to everywhere.

By further joining those bombing forces, the UK will ensure it joins the ranks of first degree targets for revenge, while fuelling yet further a highly volatile situation in the Middle East and across the world.”

And here are a few stumbling thoughts I put together after the Paris bombings :

“To try to understand the killing, it is of course relevant to think in terms of Islam, Sunni Islam, the Iraqi war, Syria, Western bombings and how all these and other particular factors have come together and brought about a new act of mass murder and self-murder.

But I just think that it is even more relevant to think of these events as if it were all one. In other words, the main point is that this (and similar atrocities) is not another way of life, another place, or another race, doing something hostile to Us and Ours.

There is no Them here. This is Us.

Our own way of life and being has given birth to a tendency among us which prefers random killing followed by suicide, to continuing to live. A preference for filling surroundings with Death over leaving them to Life.

So we have to look to ourselves, not to “Them.” “We will now wage war on Isis” is the most fatuous response, the one Isis will want, and the way most likely to ensure that deaths will continue and escalate.

These bombings by drone from on high were just one way, perhaps the most obvious, to ensure the deaths of all these people in Paris. There was no other response possible to such behaviour and now there will be more of it. Death by drone, death by suicidal gunman, what’s the difference ? Actually a huge difference. But they belong together and, hating both, I cannot see one as virtuous or necessary, compared to the other.

I’m remembering my early lessons in Christian teaching and my utter bewilderment at Christ’s directions to “turn the other cheek”. What ? Just do it again ? The “pale Galilean” was what DH Lawrence called Christ and maybe this was what he was talking about. I could only hear it as incomprehensible passive aggressive nonsense. But I am pretty sure now that I at last understand what Christ actually meant.  He was alive when the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth obligation was still seen as a matter of honour, almost a sacred duty. But this meant that killing would never stop. Endless circles, each death requiring another. But revenge is not justice, and another response is required than just revenge. But here, all these centuries later, we still are doing exactly the same, in the leaders’ response to the Paris shootings, and Christ is still light years ahead of us, being crucified again and again in our time. He was trying to replace the revenge killing mind-set with something more sensible, for our sakes. He is still failing. We are still failing Him.

It is not a matter of inviting ISIS to hit us again. It is a matter of enquiring very deeply of our own way of life, which is the way of life which has partly created ISIS, and from which it gathers its recruits : what do we do that makes young people so hating of existence that they prefer death to it ? What can we do that will restore meaning and hope in life to our own people ?”