In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

  • Is there a place for honour in this House ?

    So the UK’s Coalition Government of the last five years is now behind us and we are in the process of choosing its replacement. A frantic election campaign has begun, and in fact began ages back, much of it conducted at the lowest possible level by people trained in hitting low. There is a mix (and muddle ?) of parties to choose from, accurately reflecting our own mix and muddle, and general dissatisfaction.

    I think a dramatic and important interchange took place in the House of Commons on the Coalition Government’s last day, which has raised an important question, chiefly with regard to the choice we have to make on who will form the next government, but also to our evaluation of the years we have spent under the previous one – how to assess the impact of those years, their meaning, the nation they leave us with and the prospects for the future they suggest.

    And the form and shape of this interchange was somehow highly appropriate, even emblematic. A puerile, nasty, crafty plot had been hatched by senior figures of the Coalition Government, relying on last day absences to give them a majority. One of the plotters was William Hague, outgoing Leader of the House. Michael Gove was another. It looks highly likely that David Cameron was another, our Prime Minister. The plot was thwarted. In the process, a speech of unusual and real passion was made in the House. Even more unusual was the use of the word “honour” in that speech. We are so used to slick slogans, catch-phrases, mock outrage, ham-acting, band-standing. The contrast here was startling. And that word “honour” spoken, without notes, in near tears, on a Parliament’s last day. What on earth could it mean, this unfamiliar passion and authenticity ?

    The name of the speech-maker was Charles Walker, MP for the Tory safe seat of Broxbourne and Chair of the Commons Procedure Committee. I would guess that few outside the Commons and Broxbourne itself would have heard of him before. Certainly I had not. Now that I have, I admire him. Here is the Telegraph’s account of how he ended his speech :

    “Clearly choking back tears, Mr Walker said: ‘I have been played as a fool and when I go home tonight I will look in the mirror and see an honourable fool looking back at me and I would much rather be an honourable fool in this and any other matter than a clever man.’

    Before that climax, Mr Walker had said to the House : ‘I do say to the Government, this is not, I think, how they expected today to play out. The Government was hoping that the party would be kept here under a three-line whip for a party meeting and others would have gone home. This does not reflect well on the Government.

    ‘But can I just say this? How you treat people in this place is important. This week I went to the Leader of the House’s leaving drinks. I spent 20 minutes saying goodbye to his special adviser yesterday. I went into his private office and was passed by the Deputy Leader of the House yesterday, all of whom would have been aware of what they were proposing to do. I also had a number of friendly chats with our Chief Whip yesterday and yet I find out at 6.30 last night that this House, the Leader of this House, is bringing forward my report.’ ”

    (For the whole Telegraph article, see : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11497116/Who-is-Charles-Walker-Tearful-Tory-MP-played-as-a-fool-over-botched-Bercow-plot.html)

    It is fair to assume that, not only did Mr Walker feel that as a person and in his constitutional role he’d been treated badly, even treacherously, by his colleagues, but also that their whole demeanour in these days, the whole plot, was dishonourable. In fighting back, in refusing to countenance or collude, in voicing a protest, he was taking his honour back from these people who, while making nothing of their own honour, had also made light of his.

    Furthermore, I would say that he was taking the honour of the House of Commons back from them, who were threatening it. The honour of the House of Commons, even of all of us, rested with him that day, against its (and hence our) enemies.

    This word “honour” then. Does it matter (whatever it means) ? If it matters, should we not include it in the discourse of this election campaign ? Should we not seek to choose a leader and a government which we can trust to act honourably in the execution of their duties, as well as all the other topics being talked about ad infinitum ? Dare we assume we can take our leaders’ “honour” for granted ?

    I think we can’t and shouldn’t. I think we can’t afford to. I think we have a duty to ourselves and to the future of our country not to.

    Accordingly, I shall now go through various incidents in the life and record of the previous government that stick out in my mind. I shall briefly examine each of them, for what they can tell us, for what they seem to mean. Perhaps I shall then be able to draw some general conclusions from them under the headings of honour and character – the honour and character of the people who seek to lead, and the honour and character of the times and society in which we all find ourselves and for which all of us are responsible, to one degree or another.

    I shall start with Charles Walker himself. Something in his situation begs a question. In the last days of the Government’s life, he was treated by his own people in a manner which most of us would see as treacherous and contemptible. Days later, he has had to start campaigning on behalf of that same party, which – if successful – will be led by those same individuals. Obviously he believes in the Tory party and its principles. He also believes in honour. He expects the two to belong together. But not, or no longer, while led by these people, it seems. Where then, is Charles Walker’s true Tory Party ? What does he do next, in search of it ?

    Now let’s go all the way back to 2009, a few months before the Coalition Government was formed. New Labour was still in power, with Cameron Leader of the Opposition. The expenses scandal was erupting, unearthed by the Telegraph newspapers. And how did Cameron behave as things began to come to light ? Somehow the image of his wisteria still sticks in the memory. And the sheer rapidity with which he paid back that money he had claimed from the taxpayer to cover the expense of trimming the wisteria that graced the walls of his comfortable cottage in Oxfordshire. And then the air of clean-limbed virtue and decisiveness he emanated in addressing the scandal as it spread and destroyed a number of political careers and reputations across Westminster, and did such massive damage to the credibility of UK politics as a whole. In originally claiming that money he was apparently acting strictly and entirely by the book, the letter of the law. Yes indeed. But by the spirit ? This man already so very wealthy ? His second house ? Wisteria ? Surely Cameron was less claiming necessary expenses than grabbing as much as he could for Me and Mine, without too much compunction as far as ethics go ?

    And then am I right in thinking that he somehow managed to magic that neat footwork in paying the money back, into an illustration and display of his virtue, the decisiveness of a true leader ? The thief proclaims his high moral rectitude after hastily returning the spoils just before the cops arrive. And we buy his line.

    But what part does real honour play in this story ? And where is the boundary here between actually doing right and merely creating the illusion of doing right, to please the gullible punters ? Or to pull the wool over their eyes ? Did Cameron get away with something there ? A Wisteria Will-o’-the-Wisp ?

    Here is a short piece from the Telegraph, written in 2009, detailing Cameron’s claims : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5315163/David-Cameron-repays-680-bill-for-wisteria-removal-MPs-expenses.html

    I shall try to define lying at this point, since telling the truth surely has something to do with keeping honour. My understanding of lying is quite wide. Lying is more than saying something you know is not true. The following distinction might help to make clearer what I am trying to say. People who tell the Truth are the servants of Truth. They try to serve Truth faithfully, as best they can, seeking always to serve better. By contrast, those who lie, according to my understanding of it, are seeking to re-work the facts so that the facts serve them and their self-interest, whatever they perceive their self-interest to be. If I am the servant of Truth, I regard the truth as being larger than I am. In lying, I put myself to the fore, larger than all else, perhaps all that counts. If the facts do not suit me, I shall dress them up so that they suit me better. I shall cover or distort them. I shall conjure them into something new. I shall create a delusion, an alternative image, whose aim is chiefly to deceive, mollify, win over.

    This wider definition of lying means of course that great swathes of our society are set up, if not as enemies of the Truth, then with priorities which do not have Truth at the top of the list. Thus, advertising is a form of lie, putting a spin on what you have to sell, so that the customer will be seduced into buying it. (Regulations exist in the advertising world that seek to prevent the worst abuses, but still the overall aim is one of manipulation). Another form of lie is the system by which organisations in many spheres now have departments often (and ironically) called “Communications.” People are employed there to put a spin on events, or decisions, or policies, which shed a positive light on the employing organisation, or otherwise serve and promote its interests. In this case it is the employers’ perceived self-interest that comes before those of Truth. This is what Peter Oborne was objecting to when he left the Telegraph a few months ago. But where in our Society can Oborne now go, in search of fellow-servants of Truth ? Where can he go to escape the slaves and creatures of Self and the Lie ?

    And insofar as in our present search for political leaders we are looking to select people we can trust to lead us well and responsibly, and hence to keep their Word and their Promises, we are bound to expect more of them than we see in so much of the behaviour and conduct around us, more of them perhaps than we expect even of ourselves. For in the final event we have to trust someone. Without trust there is no Society.

    People of honour can be trusted. People of honour tell the truth. So we need leaders who are honourable. Maybe they will inspire us to be more honourable ourselves. Even if they are also fools. Honourable fools, let’s have more of you.

    Now let’s also carry on with the list.

    The Coalition’s lie about who was to blame for the international banking crash of 2008. It was all Gordon’s fault, was their immediate line, Cameron to the fore, Clegg obediently and unforgiveably in tow, sharing in the lie. And for the past five years the lie has kept on coming. And highly successful it has been. Many still believe it. If it’s not Tweedle-dum, it must be Tweedle-dee, they think. But it was brought about by the banks and it began in the States ! Ah yes, they say, but Gordon was responsible for de-regulating the banks here in the UK. But the Tories wanted to de-regulate them even more ! Exactly the same thing would have happened to them, had they been in power. Ah yes, but no-one’s listening to this discussion any more. Tee-hee.

    And Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten years, awe-inspiring figure, received international praise for his response to the crisis. Would Osborne have done as well ? I have no doubt whatsoever that it would have simply swept him away.

    The banking crisis of 2008 raises huge questions about our whole system and Western way of life. Those questions remain unanswered and in fact have been largely ignored. There was never a chance that the Coalition Government was ever going to address them.

    I am not equipped to go further on the subject of the banking crash except to make some points and ask some questions, all about process. Many of the UK electorate have been fooled by the Cameron lie. But there is no chance that foreign leaders will have been. Insofar as they were paying any attention, they would have seen that Cameron’s a reckless and transparent liar and street-corner bruiser above all else. Surely they would have taken note and surely there would have been consequences ? Yes of course Realpolitik has its own rules in international relations, but personal relationship plays a part as well. What creative relationship can there be with a shrill and brazen liar, who plays games with the truth without apparent thought of wider or long-term consequence ?

    How can a country led by such a man be seen as a reliable ally, a partner to be trusted ?

    I believe the facts about the crash are so plain, that many who accept Cameron’s lie, actually know it for what it is, a mischievous fiction that feels comforting in some fashion. Perhaps it acts as a block to ensure that awkward questions on its real implications stay in the bottle. One can only guess at why the lie has proved so durable, but whatever the reason, this behaviour, this ritualistic defiance of the adult facts, the truth, cannot increase the standing of the role of Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is a high office. In Cameron’s hands it has been hugely lowered and cheapened. Being successful in selling a lie is not leadership, it is merely pollution, hooligan mischief. It has harmed and dishonoured the House and all our communities north, south, east and west of the House.

    I shall keep adding examples to my list, insofar as doing so yields new insights or helps me in my search for an overall understanding.

    A few years ago, George Osborne, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, voiced a rhyming distinction, a rhyming opposition, a duality. We have the “Striver,” he said, and then we have the “Skiver.” Was that phrase his coining, or did some bright and fresh-faced Tory staffer come up with it ? It has hung in the air ever since, spewing all sorts of divisive poison. It has been extremely powerful and “agenda-setting,”  appealing to a certain mind-set that is not at all interested in fact, or in truth, or in community, or in humanity. It is a lie and I cannot call it anything but a wicked lie. Osborne will never admit it, nor will his colleagues who failed to challenge him on it, nor the creatures of the still unregulated, Tory-supporting oligarch-owned press that have followed it up in a bid to reinforce it, but his entire purpose in voicing it can only have been to gain some cheap and unworthy popularity among some of the population at the expense of others. Divide and rule. Fiendishly clever.

    Osborne is such a clever chap and will know that he was telling a lie, making a fiction, a false distinction. Further, if he had been bothered, he would also have known that he was instantly further excluding, and adding to the burdens upon, a large number of the population who are already extremely vulnerable and stigmatised. For instance, a very high proportion of people on long term benefits (“skivers”) have long term mental health problems or learning disabilities (it is interesting that the parties are all now competing to show how much they care about the mental health issue).

    So what enabled Osborne to throw out that little fizzing sack of verbal poison, with no reference to, or interest in, whether or not it was true  (incidentally reminding us of just how powerful words can be, for ill as well as for good) ? Clearly he saw some advantage to himself and to his Party and to his strategic purposes, in doing so. But did he not think through all the possible harms that phrase would do, to the community at large, to individual mental states in particular ? (Remember “we’re all in this together” ? Good one, George). Did he balance harm against good, or did he simply not care ? Or – and this is what I believe is likeliest – the world outside the window of himself is simply not very real to him. History’s likely judgement of him cannot be very real, either. The world he lives in is simply a chess board with pieces on it which he likes to play. It is a computer game created just for George. People are creatures you manipulate to do your will.

    Here is Zoe Williams on the striver-skiver addition to UK political discourse :  http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jan/09/skivers-v-strivers-argument-pollutes

    We’ll soon be heading for Offa’s Dyke, but let’s stay with Osborne for now, and another of his fiendishly clever lies.

    It came a fair time after his Striver-Skiver conjuring trick. UKIP were looming large and Osborne and Cameron were accordingly in a barnstorming, band-standing lather of indignation at a UK surcharge to be paid to the EU. Off to Brussels rode Osborne on his white horse borrowed from some Oxfordshire stable, to sock it to the EU bureaucrats. He came back claiming a famous victory.  There had been “hard-fought negotiations” he said, with the result that the EU had agreed to halve the bill.

    It was all a propaganda fiction, of course. The bill had indeed been halved, but by an automatic rebate which was always going to apply and everyone concerned had always known it would. Osborne was rebuked for his lie by the all-party Treasury Select Committee, chaired by a truth-telling Tory called Andrew Tyrie. The Committee said : “The suggestion that the £1.7 bn bill demanded by the EU was halved is not supported by published information.”

    Andrew Tyrie said: “The terms of the UK’s rebate calculation are set out in EU law. It should, therefore, have been clear that the rebate would apply.”

    But when these points were put to the relevant government spokesperson, that person merely repeated the Osborne fiction. It was as if the Committee had not existed or reported. As if fact and reality were not the point. The chosen lie, the propaganda fiction, were the only currencies of exchange HM Government would accept on this matter. A fantasy Dragon slain by a fantasy St Georgie-boy.

    Here is the Guardian’s report on the exchange : http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/27/george-osborne-rebuked-for-boasting-he-halved-17bn-eu-surcharge

    Now let’s head off to Offa’s Dyke, that impressive old Mercian frontier constructed to keep out the Welsh. Cameron likes the image and has used it more than once. His use of it has caused outrage but that has not deterred him. Whereas there is life here in Tory England east of the dyke, there is death to the west of it, he has proclaimed on successive occasions. A powerful image that stays in the mind and slithers about in dark corners. That ancient divide still operates. Of course Cameron was talking tribal here, Tory English vs Labour Welsh, misusing statistics in order to do so, trying to convey the Tories’ (highly ambivalent) championship of the NHS. Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing, was sufficiently exasperated to write him an open letter in protest. Was Cameron aware of the effect on NHS morale of his casual yah-boo imagery ? What will NHS staff in Wales, striving to save life, make of this utterly irresponsible untruth ? I know Peter Carter personally and honour him. He is level-headed and person-centred and fills his role to capacity. Contrast that with yah-boo Cameron who seems unable to do Prime Minister of a Nation, only ever Head Rude-boy of a Delinquent Street-gang. The picture seems to fit : where there is a divide, however ancient and left behind, Cameron fingers it lovingly, as if yearning to widen it. Maybe division excites him. “We’re all in this together” is absolutely the opposite of what he is about.

    Here is more detail on Cameron’s interest in Offa’s Dyke : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-31628749

    I think the above examples have some common themes and these have become clearer as the list lengthens. But also there are differences, particular shades and features in this or that example which can throw new light on the others, and make the whole picture clearer. Before trying to draw some conclusion about that picture,  I’ll mention one more example, very briefly – Cameron’s manoeuvrings to avoid a proper TV debate with Miliband or Farage. He will have been advised on this, of course, by Crosby and others. There would have been no thought of the needs of the electorate, or of democracy, or of democratic accountability, or of honour, of course. Just of Cameron winning. And with that as the only measure, it seemed better to keep Miliband draped and hidden behind Tory slander than to allow him to be seen for who he is. And yes, of course there would be flak, and embarrassing references to Cameron’s earlier stated enthusiasm for the debate format, but the plebs would soon forget all that and the flak die away and the electoral gain for Cameron would out-weigh any short-term loss he might suffer as a result of his game-playing. And any loss we the nation might suffer was of absolutely no concern.

    But we know all that. The particular point I want to draw out, the aspect that makes this example worth including, is the utter contemptuous transparency of Cameron’s and the Tories’ ploys and prevarications to make sure they got their way in blocking democratic process. S’not fair – you should include the Greens. Just one example. Yeah, yeah. As if he cared two hoots about including the Greens.

    Everyone knew what was going on. The Tories knew we knew, but didn’t care. Their game of pure self-interest, wrapped in a succession of careless lies, was played out to its utterly cynical conclusion, bringing yet further contempt upon our system and upon our very use of language. Was Cameron bovvered ?

    Every parent has to deal with a child who learns to lie and then wants to experiment with what advantages lying can bring. I wonder if Cameron has ever done so with his own children. Now listen to me, children, he might say. If you start lying to people, they’ll never believe you. If you want people to trust you, you should tell them the truth. Just so. Talking to liars is a wasteful use of precious time. How much of our talking is just an exchange of lies ?

    But more than that, the community needs protection from people who lie as a matter of policy. For to lie and to keep lying to your neighbour implies a detachment from and contempt for that neighbour that makes you dangerous.

    And yet further than that, lying as Cameron did in this case, as if you can’t be bovvered even to seem to be trying to come up with something a bit plausible ? How to understand that ?  Massive and angry arrogance is the only answer I can think of. The fucking plebs have gone along with his lies up to now. They don’t need or deserve that he make even the tiniest effort this time.

    I shall now do what I can to make some sense of this succession of examples, to see if a fair portrait emerges, a profile or set of features that can in turn instruct us on what might lie ahead. I remain mindful of the words “character” and “honour,” mentioned towards the beginning of this piece.

    The first thing to say is that I do not think the story of the Coalition Government has followed its initial script. That initial script belonged with Cameron. He was to create and offer a cool and “modernised” Tory Party in much the same way as Blair had done with New Labour. But there has been a major difference. Whatever New Labour’s sins of commission and omission during its decade in power, real and substantive change took place in the party itself (though not of a kind to avoid a possibly disastrous loss of support among the population). Far less real change has taken place among the Tories. Cameron is a public relations man. He thought a few slick ad-man images would do. Hug a Husky. Hug a Hoody. (And in doing so, always focus the camera on Davey-boy). And as some of the above examples have shown, he continues to act not just as if his message is the only medium that counts, but is a substitute for reality. No need for the truth. Block it out by just repeating the message, the ads, the selling lines, the lies. The fucking pleb will get it in the end. My message will lodge in the plebian brain like an advert jingle and eventually the pleb will buy.

    The next thing is the amount of division and dividing lines we can discern in the examples I have listed in this piece. Several are explicit, others implicit. Might we say that wherever Cameron goes, division appears to go with him, so that where there was already division he adds to it, and where there was none before he seems somehow to introduce it ? England vs Scotland ; UK vs EU ; Wales vs Mercia ; rich vs poor ; “skiver” vs “striver” ; “us” vs “immigrants” ; govt vs bishops ; spin vs fact ; lies vs truth ; delusion vs reality. The image is of the family man chopping Little Gem lettuces, the wisteria wagging trimly outside the door. The reality may be very different. The indulged and slick-tongued bully-boy addicted to battle and reduction, turning the Commons into a playground where delinquent rowdies rule, at all times needing and fermenting division and fragmentation.

    Thirdly, the arrogance of these people, their disconnection from, and disdain for, so much the rest of us know to be true. To establish the cause of their arrogance, their disregard for plebian concerns such as truth and honour, we cannot discount the class and education so many of them have come from, if only because it was so noticeable and pronounced in the Coalition. Those schools so many of them went to still signify and encourage separation, difference and superiority. That is what these people were sent there for and that is what we as a nation have suffered from them. There are many other reasons for disconnection and disdain in modern life, but this particularly English one surely features here, to an unknown extent.

    I am talking character here. In doing so I must be careful not to simplify. We are looking at Cameron’s character, and that of much of his government. It counts and influences how he behaves, in his position of power, his role of Prime Minister being now so much more “presidential,” or at least continually in the camera’s spotlight, than it used to be. But it is not the whole story and while Cameron is to be held individually responsible for what he does with his power and his role as leader of a nation, for how he uses it and abuses it, the character I am loosely drawing here is also our character, as a people and as a generation. In a sense Cameron is because we let him be. Cameron, at the head of his “team,” acts out what he thinks we like to see and hear. He will do so as long as he thinks enough of us like it. He is an aspect of us. If he is a creature of division and fragmentation, so to a great extent are we.  Do we want to continue down this road ? If so, we’ll vote for Cameron.

    Finally “honour.” There has been a terrible and inexcusable lack of honour in the policies and behaviour of the Coalition Government, right up to its last day. The examples I have given in this piece wreak of dishonour. Honour is not some luxury or relic from a bygone era, romantically remembered, rose-tinted. It is a staple for civilisation, since it is necessary for mutual trust. And I will say again to Charles Walker MP, bring on the honourable fools. Let’s have more of you. You are better and also safer company than the clever men we can assume you were talking about.

    But I would add this : I do not think you need be a fool to be honourable. Nor do I think dishonourable people are clever at all. Far from it. Being honourable is the only clever thing to be. As individuals and as a Society, being honourable is our only hope.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Posted:

  • What’s a “Carer” ?

    Each of us surely wants to be acknowledged as a “caring” person, even while so much that is uncaring is happening all round us – perpetrated presumably by aliens. The Head Rude-boy of Blingland has presided over changes in the Benefit system that disgrace us all, even while they continue sufficiently popular with his constituency to keep him at it. But he is careful to dress up the changes in some fashion that can make them seem benevolent, to make him seem to be someone who really, really “cares.”

    But for several years now, the word “Carer” has been used to describe something a bit more specific that just the good neighbour, true or feigned.

    In the social care services, the term describes – albeit very clumsily – a person involved – to a lesser or greater degree – in the care and support of someone who cannot manage for him or herself. Often the word “informal” is added, to emphasise the point that what is being described is unpaid, voluntary and unofficial, merely natural. For instance, the mother, or spouse, or child, or friend, involved in the community support of someone with long-term mental health problems, or someone who is elderly and infirm, is deemed an “informal carer.”

    And the point is to ensure that the crucial nature of that complex role is recognised, so that certain state entitlements now due to the people concerned, carrying their burden, are claimed and provided. For it is still the case that many people whose lives are centred on, and defined by, their “informal caring” role, would not dream of using those words to describe what they do and are not aware that their activities warrant some (minimal) support. All they know is that their role and function is exhausting yet inescapeable, merely natural.

    Some years ago I briefly worked with some “carers” and several poems resulted. Here, here  and here are perhaps the best of them.

    Posted:

  • Screen

    We search the screen for images

    but they come searching us.

    They are seeking our weak points.

    They want to win us.

    They reach for us

    through the screen

    antennae probing.

    They never see us.

    They cannot see.

     

    We peer at them

    through the screen

    trying to decipher

    their ploys, their deceptions

    their hidden purposes.

    The screen masks them

    and we cannot see.

     

    We prostrate ourselves

    at the screen’s foot

    and cry, Hail, Delusion !

    Posted:

  • Rule by Rude Boy ?

    What has been the effect upon UK citizens of the behaviour we have witnessed during the past few days, as negotiations over the planned televised debates between our political leaders appear to have reached their climax ?

    For me, the way Cameron/his Party/his hooligan Press have conducted themselves has been utterly astonishing. Obviously the Tory decision to avoid the debates was taken ages back, for mendacious reasons. The signals since that decision was made have been clear. It was based on a close calculation of party advantage, with no reference to, or respect for, democratic process, or the needs of democracy itself.

    This dodgy lot is not the first to have calculated on that basis, but the existence of precedents is no excuse, especially in our present climate of disenchantment with, and detachment from, politics and politicians. Cameron is actually not a coward and for opponents to call him one now is just to join the whole absurd charade, its script predicted and maybe even written in Tory Head Office. Cameron is a red-faced self-worshipper. He is also a calculating machine, utterly irresponsible, utterly without conscience. He is weighing his chances and trying his luck.

    But worse, the brazen manner with which this has been done, under so many eyes, the lazily transparent dishonesty of the long succession of ploys and alibis, have had a quality of their own. The original decision was a corrupt and cynical one. But the manner in which it has been implemented has been still more corrupt, if that were possible. There is absolute contempt operating here, and it is dangerous. Cameron and his street gang are making a nonsense of us all, of the political process, of what that process is for, of our language, of our nationhood.

    During the same week in which these contemptuous acts of hooliganism were taking place, we have witnessed the latest Prime Minister’s Question Time, which some have described as the most appalling yet. Repeatedly, the man occupying the high office of our Prime Minister did not see fit to answer our Opposition’s questions. To the orchestrated bayings of approval from the tail-wagging fox-hounds behind him, he merely chose his own topics to talk about, independent of the questions. More delinquent Bullington-boy abuse of our democracy, of due process shaped and developed over centuries. Whatever he can get awhy wiv, he will pursue. Knock it all dahn.

    I struggle with the meaning of this. What does it mean to be Cameron, or his supporters, doing what they are doing ? These are calculated policy decisions they have made, in order to win advantage. But at what cost to all of us, themselves included, their own party, their own children ? Are they not awake to any wider concern ?

    And what does it mean that people behaving in this rude-boy fashion, with the record they have of social fracture, injustice and division, deeply dubious austerity measures, savagely implemented, are level in the polls these days and might even win ?

    Do we assent, after all, to being ruled by an unrepentant street gang, sleek delinquents, posh hooligans ? Is that what is left to us ? Is that what is left of us ?

    In present conditions, the worship of self, of Me n’ Mine, the worship of the god of selfies, in defiance of community and trust, is similar if not the same as the ancient worship of Moloch. By all accounts, the ancient worship of Moloch required the burning to death of the nation’s first born, as propitiation. By the same token, if we do not want our children soon to die in a burning world, brought about by our greed and hooliganism, our maltreatment of Other, then we need to adopt a very different god from this baleful Me n’ Mine. The coming election is actually not a choice between left and right. It is a choice between gods.

    Put it another way : over the past five years, and now as they prepare to fight for re-election, the people who presently run this nation’s government have revealed very clearly who they are and how they view the electorate. Their behaviour is that of juvenile delinquents set loose in the playground, unsupervised and utterly arrogant. But they are also transparent (unless we are choosing to be blind). Therefore, if they win the election, they will do so only because the electorate has chosen to share with them their surrender to hooliganism, this nihilistic dance of death.

    It is as if we are all waiting for the adults to come home. Do we yearn for their arrival or do we dread it ? Will they come home in time ?

    Posted:

  • Truth or Lie – which to vote for in May ?

    For me, one of the best news items in recent days has been Peter Oborne’s resignation from The Telegraph on a point of principle.

    I hadn’t even heard his name before, but suddenly here he is, more prominent and sharply focused than almost anything else in the parade of parrot heads and slogans we are so used to.

    This respected man of apparently right wing views has accused The Telegraph of tailoring its news coverage to suit its own commercial interests, thereby betraying the trust of its readership. His headline example was The Telegraph’s reticence concerning the HSBC tax dodging scandal, in which the bank’s Swiss branch advised the rich of various nations on how to avoid their tax responsibilities. But Oborne has talked of this as just the last straw, the latest in a succession of signs of deterioration of various kinds. He has pointed the finger at The Telegraph Media Group’s present chief executive, Murdoch MacLennan, and The Telegraph’s owners, the beaming Barclay Brothers, Sir Frederick and Sir David, who live in a mock-Gothic castle on a small channel island called Brecqhou, near the island of Sark. These identical twins have a reputation for having sophisticated tax arrangements which include the use of at least one known tax haven.

    How refreshingly different from the common. A lone man of principle, skilled with words, using them powerfully, and having real impact. Taking on Big Money and Big Lie. The lonely sheriff who does not flinch as the clock ticks towards High Noon. Something clear and even noble emerges out of the usual foggy tissue of Sell and Spin and Sleaze.

    Is he a bit of a romantic, with an idealised vision of those better days at The Telegraph he cites, when apparently Truth was master, served faithfully at all levels of the operation ?

    Maybe, but it makes no odds if so. The principle he is stating is essential and transcends all else. Sell and Spin is an active wickedness and a cancer. Its creatures grow and grow in number and have spread imperceptibly and everywhere, way beyond The Telegraph and similar examples of our hooligan press, way beyond our hooliganised, our infantilised, House of Commons, that poisonous Westminster “bubble” which New Labour did so much to foster. Democracy and civilisation itself are threatened by Spin, the rule of the lie and of the liar. Without a shared currency of truth-telling, and the communal trust it engenders, our society is bankrupted and shattered and every individual in it is made a pauper and an outcast.

    So we owe this man our thanks. So do those of his colleagues who agree with his position and his decision to act, but did not act themselves and so must carry on in creature mode, silenced and colluding. He has shown them and the rest of us what being human means. The vision helps and lifts the spirits of the enslaved, the creatured.

    And let us note what this man of principle, with his tendency to identify himself with the right wing, has to say about Ed Miliband. Miliband is scorned and insulted on a regular basis by the orchestrated parrot heads and licensed rude-boys of the right, whom we now know so well. But this very month, in a piece in The Spectator, Oborne argued that Miliband has been a consistent and strong leader of the Opposition and, like Margaret Thatcher, has forged his own course, changing the terms of the debate on big business, foreign policy, Israel-Palestine and the power of the Murdoch press. He wrote that Miliband is the most accomplished Opposition leader since the Second World War.

    Compare that measured judgement to the puerile play-ground bully-boy insults usually hurled at Miliband by right-wingers, both press and politicians, all the way up to the sleek disgraceful operator presently polluting and demeaning the high office of UK Prime Minister.

    Oborne’s respect for Miliband makes you wonder, in passing, what he thinks of Cameron. More important, assuming he identifies himself as belonging towards the right of the political spectrum, what set of beliefs does Oborne, this man of obvious intelligence and integrity and high principle, associate with that place on the spectrum, so that he wants to stay there ? I see the present government of the UK as being in many respects the worst and most disgraceful there has been in my memory, perhaps ever. It is the blind and vicious leading the blind and irresponsibly gullible. And it is a government of the Right (on the one hand minutely restrained, and on the other largely abetted, by a few tame rabbits led by Clegg). Aside from this nightmare of hooliganism, lies and demented greed, is there, after all, somewhere on the right of the political spectrum that one could actually respect ? Can anything be built there ?

    In terms of numbers and institutional import, a larger recent event than Oborne’s resignation, with its strong words and reference to high principle, has been the Bishops’ letter in preparation for the coming UK general election. Some while ago, I wrote a post here, criticising the church for its low profile on issues that mattered. See :  http://www.roganwolf.com/publicsite/2012/07/08/where-is-the-church-i-dont-see-it-anywhere 

    Then the Roman Catholic Cardinal Nichols spoke up about food banks and used the word “disgraceful” to describe them and the need for them. (Instantly, Davey boy and his head pet rabbit leapt into camera shot and said Nichols was exaggerating). And I thought, aha, that’s better, I can see the Church now and it is speaking truth again. I wrote another post – http://www.roganwolf.com/publicsite/2014/02/24/thank-god-for-the-bishops/

    And now, with this latest very strong intervention, the Church and other faiths have made themselves even more correctly visible, in witness of the truth, with a statement of real strength (possibly implying a state of social emergency in doing so), and we can give thanks for Archbishop Welby as a man worthy of his calling and of his role.

    The Bishops’ letter is another reminder that there are such things as principle and values and community and they all matter centrally, and while it avoids taking political sides, it makes clear statements about social responsibility and concern for the poor. This of course has raised the hackles of some of the anti-social louts presently abusing the power that we the people have so tamely allowed them and again Davey-boy pops into focus and for a few moments claims a truer Christian witness than the Bishops’ own, in glibly refuting them. Then he dashes off to continue his depredations, his rending of our common weal and bindings, his kicking of the poor.

    And having reached this point, let us not forget a similar recent process, when the King’s Fund, a prestigious independent body, produced its report on the NHS. It declared that the Lansley changes which the Coalition Government had sprung on the electorate after coming into power (The Tories having kept their plans for the NHS back from their manifesto – a clear indication – surely – of contempt for democracy, for principle and for the British people), these changes had been – predictably – a disaster. In answer, the government spokesperson did not bat an eye-lid. The report, years in the preparing and written by experts, was simply wrong, the person said. And anyway, it had mentioned one or two positives and these were all that mattered. Reality is what it suits us it should be.

    Precisely so. Reality has become what it suits us it should be. And if reality doesn’t suit our purposes, or our purses, or our comfort, we’ll bat it away and pretend it’s something else. We will spin it into whatever shape might serve us.

    Oborne objected to The Telegraph putting its own commercial interests before its duty to truth and fact and its community. Nah nah nah, was the answer. You’re wrong. Sleep on. Your nightmare is now. Cardinal Nichols and the bodies he represents objected to the scandal of the food banks in the UK. Nah nah nah, was the answer. You’re wrong. Sleep on. Your nightmare is now. The King’s Fund demonstrated vividly a disastrous fragmenting of the NHS, weakening it when it should have been strengthened. Nah nah nah was the answer. You’re wrong. Sleep on. Your nightmare is now.  The Bishops and other faith leaders objected to irresponsible political game playing that has encouraged scapegoating and the abuse of the poor and the stranger, for political ends. Nah nah nah, was the answer. You’re wrong. Sleep on. Your nightmare is now.

    And what will be the UK electorate’s answer, on election day ?

    Will we wake up in time ? Do we want to ? Do we dare ? Or do we prefer our present sleep, our present nightmare ?

    Posted:

  • What is this world? What asketh men to have ?

    There was once a teacher whose words had unusual power. Crowds gathered wherever he spoke.  But somehow and at the same time, his mere presence seemed to threaten all order and decorum in the city.  With wonderful persuasiveness, he seemed to be calling a whole way of life into question. He was advocating change, astonishing change.

    He taught that the quality of your life and your significance as a human being were not to be measured by which gods you worshipped as compared to other gods, or which possessions you owned as compared to other possessions.

    He proclaimed that there was just one central truth, one light, that stood before all of humankind. It was not for mere humans to choose between gods, different gods for each tribe, or region, or tradition, or aspect of life. It was a plain fact from which no human could escape that. just as there was but one Creation, so there was but one Creator and all of humankind derived from that one source, that one beginning.

    And this in turn called into question the value of material gain as an aim in human life, once you had enough for your own needs and those of your family. In fact, any way of life which aimed at pampering self, in competition with others, was a distraction and even a wickedness. Human beings were born not for the world to serve them, but for them to serve the will of their Creator, in step with the dance of Creation. So the teacher preached against acquisition and accumulation for its own sake and, instead, urged and prescribed generosity towards the poor and the needy, kind treatment and emancipation of slaves, and equality between men and women before God. For all human beings were made common by a plain and irrefutable fact that there was but one Creator and all being is derived from that one source.

    The teacher said that what mattered was not what you possessed in your own walled spaces, distinct from others, but how you behaved in the space between yourself and others, as a fellow-citizen and neighbour ; so that an over-riding urge to wealth and comfort was actually an anti-social and destructive force ; and any wealth and comforts you possessed that were superfluous to your needs, you should give away to those who lacked a sufficiency.

    The longer he spoke, the more the city walls shook and trembled. The wealthy and privileged who lived in their palaces and behind their high walls, plotting together on how to avoid paying the taxes required for the community’s use and betterment, how to curry favour with the local rulers and their entourages, how to climb the prestige ladder, saw that their world was about to collapse around them. They were proud of feeling better than and different from all the poor people outside their high-built walls. And this teacher seemed about to blow those walls down.

    So they went to the teacher’s uncle and guardian and sought to threaten and bribe him. Give us the teacher so that we may kill him, they said. Otherwise he will bring chaos to the city.

    But the teacher’s uncle refused.

    They said, we will give the teacher treasure if he complies with us, such treasure that he won’t be able to refuse. Look at it. Now pass it to him. They thought this would persuade him. But still the uncle refused. He said that while this treasure might mean a great deal to the rich people who were offering it, it would mean nothing at all to the teacher. They were trying to silence him by means of their own bankrupt currency. Their bribes had no meaning, no weight and no value.

    So with guile, good fortune and through the courage and wisdom of his supporters, the teacher continued his preaching and his witness. He preached and proclaimed in the city and far beyond. He died many deaths along the way.

    His name was Muhammad.

     

    (NB the title of this piece has nothing to do with what is a traditional Muslim story. The title comes from one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.” Specifically, the words can be found in Part IV, lines 1919 – 1921, of “The Knight’s Tale” and are spoken by the knight Arcite, as he lies dying). 

    Posted:

  • Who’s to Blame for our Condition ? Who can we Accuse ?

    Shall we blame Foreigners ? Oh yes, let’s. It’s all those Eurocrats and Asylum Seekers. Those Ukranians. Those Poles. Those Australians. Those “ethnics.” Foreigners are all liars and criminals. Well, let’s pretend they are, anyway. It’s comforting to feel under siege. It makes you surer of your ground.

    And shall we blame Poor People too ? People dependent on a benevolent State ? People in a weak position ? Oh yes, let’s. They’re all skivers, all workshy. That’s a lie, of course. But so what ? It’s comforting. Let’s grab the lie and wack ’em with it. Let’s make them foreign in our minds and give ’em a kicking. It will cheer us up. It’ll make us feel surer of our ground.

    People outside a particular and familiar ring. People beyond the pale. Easy targets. Let’s get ’em. Then we few can feel that we’re all in this together. In a ring and under siege. Hitting out at the besiegers.

    Or shall we blame the politicians who should fix everything, but do not ? Who should speak to us from the heart but merely mouth their lines at us, treating us like children, treating us like the enemy without, treating us as just fodder for their sleek and poisonous propaganda ?

    And then, after treating us like children, they behave like adolescent hooligans themselves, squealing yah-boo in public in ways that we would punish them for if we were their parents. And they in turn join the blame-game, in their adolescent way, turning the House of Commons into a poorly supervised school playground  :

    Mumsy, it’s not me. It’s him. It’s Them. The international financial crisis precipitated by the misbehaviour of certain banks around the world was all Gordon’s fault, Mumsy. Blame him. And Ed. And Ed. Them others. Not me. I’m a good boy. So is Georgie-boy. And him over there, on the other side, he’s a waste of space, Mumsy. Love me, not him. I’m the one for you, Mumsy. Just look at the way I point at dead fish in foreign places in the Summer-time. It proves I was born to lead, Mumsy. Throw me your favour.

    Once upon a time, people burned witches. Especially in times of heightened anxiety. Especially along uncertain frontiers.  It was comforting.

    In some aspects we have advanced since then. These days, for instance, we can sit a space-craft down on a comet. In other aspects, it seems,  we have advanced not a millimetre. Our children will pay for that.

    In our anxiety we retreat into a ring of anger and look to make someone outside it pay. As if that will solve the problem. As if that will magic away the cause of our anxiety.

    In my own ring, I find myself raging at my country’s political leaders to the point of hatred. My contempt for Cameron et al is already leaking into this piece and I have to ask myself, am I not just joining the witch-hunt ? Where The Express seeks to whip up prejudice against foreigners, where the Mail seeks to whip up prejudice against people it calls “the Workshy” and where Davey-boy blames Gordon in a sustained attempt to blind people into supporting the Tory cuts and Austerity policies, leading them away from the facts and away from their saner selves, am I not equally scapegoating Davey-boy – for things over which he actually has no control, things which, even were he a far better and more honourable statesman and citizen and human being than he is, he could not do much to ameliorate ?

    And I have to answer, yes, probably, to an extent. The extent of the intensity cannot entirely be due to the man and his actions. I yearn for his defeat in May, and for everything he apparently stands for, but under a different less smoothly loutish and socially divisive and destructive group of political leaders, will the world be that much safer ? Will humankind be any closer to salvation ? Will our futures look significantly more redolent of hope ? We are who we are and maybe in this generation we are merely discovering that who we are as a species is a hopeless case.  Davey-boy, Head Rude-boy of Blingland, is just a reminder of a wider cause for despair. He is who we deserve, maybe. He is us, maybe. He occupies a space that we have left for him. It is finally our doing that at this juncture the high office of Prime Minister of the UK is occupied by a sleek sociopathic salesman of rotten cabbages whom significant numbers of us continue to find plausible, against the evidence of five years’ worth of harm he has done to this country, to its structures and to its soul.

    And here I think is my justification. In the circumstances, I am looking too much to a mere political leader to rescue us, to have all the answers, to work miracles, to be genuinely inspirational ; and I have no right to blame that leader for what is actually human nature, the limitations, frailties and fallibility from which none us is free ; but in our present situation of tumult, fragmentation and uncertainty, conditions which call for the best and wisest and most generous in all of us, I am justified in blaming that leader for seeking as often as the present one does to work on and encourage and ride upon the worst in all of us, for his own benefit. And the lies keep coming, carefully coined, smoothly delivered. The lies alone signify a contempt for and distance from the nation he keeps lying to, that makes him dangerous to it. Each new lie is a further drop of poison in the reservoir of our democracy and our community. Neither democracy nor community can survive without trust. And as any parent will tell any child, lies destroy trust and make speaking in words pointless.

    So, in the circumstances, I am looking for worthy political leadership with greater need and expectation than perhaps is quite justifiable ; but what the present leadership has provided for the past five years is an attack across the board upon all the values I hold dear and on all the ties which in my opinion hold us together as a Society and are the soil and spring-board for any real recovery that we might hope for. A vacuum has grown and grown. The words we seek continue to fail. The ways forward we reach for keep failing to materialise. The present leader has not led. He has merely postured and kicked out. There has been no recovery of anything of worth. He has merely shown us, time after time, in himself, what the problem is. If we were in doubt before of what we stand for and where we are going, we are in utter bewilderment now. Values have been thrown to the winds. As a nation in 2015, we stand for nothing we can be proud of, only self and self-seeking, deceitfulness and greed. We have been spun into utter emptiness and delinquency at all levels. Our own children have cause to be very frightened of us.

    How can we ever fully understand ourselves, the tides and currents that swirl in our systems ? Perhaps also there is a kind of well in me which has been breached, concerning people who are vulnerable. Connecting with the vulnerable, the outsider, is a kind of well-spring for me and explains much of my working life. This government has laid into the vulnerable virtually from the start, making political capital from something unworthy and destructive in human nature which it had a duty, as the government of a civilised country, to oppose. Instead it cultivated the fissure, encouraged the misinformation, indulged itself in the prejudices of its natural supporters, and moved in and began to bully, claiming virtue in so doing. There can be no excuse, no justification. I see it as a criminal offence.

    One more line of thought : politics can arouse passions and for all its limitations can have a massive impact on many people’s lives. Witness the Bedroom Tax. This is Caesar’s world, after all. Caesar can kill in all manner of ways. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s due.

    But where is God in this ? Or religion ? Or the faith that goes with both ?

    Are the worlds of God and Caesar so very distinct ? There is much that can be said in answer, but I shall limit myself to a few thoughts and then I shall offer a couple of names for a new god.

    Faith which is normally associated with religion can also be applied to secular movements, to political means and ends. Thus, people can believe in certain politics, certain governmental policies and ideas and creeds, with religious fervour. So those ventures become something other than mere human constructs and rational attempts of the possible. They become Right (or Wrong) ; they become Good (or Bad) ; they become attempts to correct (or corrupt) human living. They become objects of worship. They attract devotees, some of whom may be fanatical.

    And my name for this new god is Me n’ Mine. Another name is Number One.  In turn, this god reminds me of other false gods I have heard of – Baal and Moloch. They occur in the Old Testament and are associated there with idolatry, enemies of the chosen people. They are also associated with child sacrifice. Devotees propitiated the god by sacrificing to him their own children. Flaubert gives an appalling description of one such imagined ceremony in his novel “Salammbô”. The children were burnt alive within the brazen statue of the god.

    Come to think of it, Number One is not such a new god after all. Mammon has been around for quite a while, attracting devotees, enjoying his creatures.

    But this false god, however we name it, is not just our own figment, our own blank canvas. It has reality, real force. It works upon and within each one of us, strengthening the worst in us, weakening the best. Some of us become its creatures, its orcs, wholly overwhelmed and overtaken. I think it originates in fear.

    But only in this generation has the worship of Mammon actually threatened the next generation of humanity with death from global burning. Maybe this is another reason for the intensity of my hatred of the present government. It is a government of faith. Its creatures worship Me an’ Mine/”Number One”/Mammon/Baal/Moloch. Their faith is blind. And they are dangerous.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Posted:

  • Wrestling with my Shadow

     

    My shadow dogs my path. It dwarfs me,

    this daemon, this desolate god.

    Could I live shadow-free ?

    Would I fly ?

    What would be left of me ?

     

    Here are some more thoughts on the shadow :

     

    First Sightings

     

    I can say this with real pride :

    no one but I

    throws my shadow.

     

    I call it my under-self, my field

    of operation. I cannot

    call it home.

     

    I glimpse it sometimes, usually at night,

    leaping the wet rocks

    as the tall seas break and pursue ;

     

    or poised for a moment of a bare grey tree-stump

    calm after that stoop for eternity

    out of the wind, the clutch of the mist ;

     

    or sidling with gleeful expertise

    through the ranks of the juggernauts –

    that blind, brutal caravan…

     

    My Shadow at Bedside

     

    My shadow leaps on me

    each time I sleep –

    to devour me.

    Yet still my mornings

    find me whole

    and at each waking

    there my shadow hangs

    like empty sacking

    against my wall –

    wholly at my disposal.

     

    Kiss of the Dark Angel

     

    The dark angel of my dreams

    was dreadfully beautiful

     

    lithe and invincible

    and faceless

     

    sans eyes sans mouth

    his head like a smooth bulb

     

    dark and gleaming.

    I knew I could not hope

     

    to escape and yes

    here he comes pouring

     

    up the stone steps

    by the sea-shore, the waves

     

    wild behind him

    straight up at me

     

    outwitting me without effort

    in our life-long race,

     

    glorious in his searing energy.

    I submit, powerless and rapt

     

    as the lipless angel kisses me

    taking my face.

     

    Escape Bid

     

    How have I allowed

    my shadow to grow so tall ?

    It rises from my lamp

    like a vast giggling genie.

    “Your wish is my command,

    O Master,” my genie roars.

    And I quail.

     

    It winks at me

    each evening

    and for that moment

    I see nothing

    anywhere in the world.

     

    I threw my shadow

    all over town –

    It leaned across at me

    from each echoing underpass

    from each foul lift-shaft

    from each despairing alley-way.

     

    I scattered my shadow like seed

    across the fields –

    and the seed bounded from the earth

    like a mob of heroes

    who chased me and harried me

    and reduced me before the whole world.

     

    I caught my shadow by the throat

    and flung it into a pit

    and packed the pit with sand

    boulders and rich cement

    and when all had set

    hard as rock

     

    I turned to escape, shrieking with relief –

    a hand formed of new rock

    siezed my heel.

    I stood there above my pit

    locked in my shadow.

     

    Three-way Encounter between Me, my Shadow                                  and the dread lord Number One

     

    I have this enemy

    my “inveterate foe”

    my enemy Number One.

     

    Whenever we meet, my enemy

    wastes me. I become zero.

    All meaning drains from me.

     

    I become a flatness on the road

    a vague ugliness in the air

    an abortion. And I have nothing

     

    I can call on, no wild cards

    no reserve forces, no hidden energies

    to throw into the field.

     

    I call my enemy “Number One.”

    I don’t know what it looks like

    for it borrows any form

     

    it chooses. And is it “He ?” or “She ” ?

    It is random and boundless.

    It is All. All is “It.”

     

    And I never have warning

    of an encounter. No clouds

    of dust on the horizon,

     

    no slow rumble of feet, no tensing

    of greased muscle, no pause in sound.

    Simply my shadow deserts me.

     

    *********************

     

    And suddenly I lose my footing.

    My ground just goes, my hold on space.

    I look about me. I’m not here.

     

    I reach for anything I have

    anything that makes me

    anything that marks and shapes me.

     

    I reach for my history

    my unique possession –

    it’s gone it’s an empty lift shaft.

     

    I reach for my voice

    my shaping words my answer my shriek –

    and the words give in the wind

     

    and all my forming my bite on the air

    collapses like a slack sail

    like a shower of teeth.

     

    I reach for my rage my saving grace –

    and find nothing but a gasping franticness

    an incapacity, a self-immolation

     

    and all that comes of my rage

    for survival is a rush to give ground

    and yield all to the poised advance of my destroyer.

     

    I writhe in the air like a foreign element

    marooned here here above ground

    hanging like a fish by the tail

     

    held in triumph one Summer’s evening.

    I am a transparency held to the sunlight

    open to any examination.

     

    *********************

     

    And I cry to my shadow

    “Why now ?” Why desert me

    now ? Each breath of my life

     

    I have sought to escape you

    to fly weightless

    to exist in pure mind

     

    to secure utter distinctness

    to achieve eternity.

    Must now be the time I at last succeed

     

    now when I need your earth ?

    For my infidelity

    you desert me to our ruin.”

     

    And Number One, deep in its steel case

    lashing at forests, at continents, at cities,

    befouling ocean, air-wave, blood-stream,

     

    raising hordes

    of zealots to slaughter their fellows

    in the name of a phantasm

     

    breeding the will to deceive,

    tending the urge to piracy and plunder

    nurturing despair, aiding inertia

     

    working deep in, working slowly

    to the very core, paring

    particularising, severing, numbering

     

    Number One turns from its vast enterprise

    hissing in glee

    at my distress

     

    and whispers :

    “From whence do you consider

    stem my victories?”

     

    Last Word

     

    …My shadow carries my shape and moves with my movements. But it has no features and it never speaks ; and all sorts of strange forms or colours could be hidden in its darkness. Its shape keeps shifting and often it simply disappears. But then it returns. When I am happy I dance and with me my shadow dances. We dance together. When I am ill at ease, I labour and constantly I look back in dread and see my shadow pursuing me, threatening me.

    Sometimes, then, my shadow seems to be my loyal and faithful friend, at others my implacable and inescapable enemy. To befriend my shadow would appear to be essential if I am to live successfully here on Earth.

    If someone or something overshadows me, I receive immediate protection from the Sun and am relieved of the immense responsibility of my own shadow. On the other hand I am weakened, deprived of my energy and autonomy. It is as if my shadow has been stolen from me, eaten up by a stronger force.

    And this in turn implies that my shadow is an important energy source and that I should retain that energy by insisting on my personal independence. Accordingly I must allow nothing and no one to overshadow me. For the Earth is sick and any creative source of energy which can retain wholeness must now devote itself to restoring the Earth.

    © Rogan Wolf

     

    Posted: