Dear friends, below the gallows tree
Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
Sae dauntingly gaed he;
He played a tune and he danced aroon,
Below the gallows tree.
Macpherson’s Lament
On 16 November 1700, in the town of Banff (Scotland), the outlaw and great fiddle player, James Macpherson, was hung (in public as was usual then). On the gallows he sang, played and danced a tune he had written the night before in jail awaiting execution, Macpherson’s Lament. At the end, he took the fiddle in tae baith o his hands and he brak it ower a stane (that is he broke it over a stone), Sayin, nay other hand shall play on thee when I am dead and gane. His broken fiddle is on display at the museum of Clan Macpherson in Newtonmore, Inverness-shire.
Why talk about Macpherson’s Lament now? Well, it’s one of the great songs, it’s always a good time to talk about it. Now there’s another reason as well. The Republican lust for judicial killing, for the death penalty … well, we’ve known about that forever. But Trump’s lust goes way beyond the Republican norm – remember what he did in the last days of his first presidency.
Now, with his lapdog at the Pentagon, he came up with a scheme that doubled the gratification of those who lust for death. The shooter, Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009, will be executed by firing squad, and the execution will be livestreamed on December 3, 2026.
He has now backed off from the livestreaming bit, but not before fierce debate erupted. Religious groups are divided. But the predominant view, I think, is revulsion: when Mike Johnson agrees with liberals that means that Trump (and his lapdog) has gone way beyond the comfort zone of even his MAGAest supporters. The word barbarism has been invoked: if the livestreaming proceeds then we have become a barbaric nation.
Yes, but why am I talking about James MacPherson? Here’s why. I agree with those who opposed the livestreaming, are disgusted by it, say. But what are they disgusted by? The way an execution will be carried out. They are not disgusted by the execution itself. If a country has the death penalty then Hasan is one of the most obvious candidates for execution. What countries do have the death penalty? Look it up, it’s not a particularly edifying list. Who doesn’t? Well, the European Union for one (or 27). Should the US decide that it wants to join the European Union, there are a large number of reasons why it would be turned down, the death penalty is one of them.
Now, however, Trump has backed off from the livestreaming idea because he has just found out (no one bothered to tell him before) that Hasan is in a wheelchair because of the wounds he suffered during and after his attack. Trump seems to think that it would be a “bad look” for someone to be shot and killed while sitting in a wheelchair and livestreamed to the public. And he’s right. Another case only alike to this one in the physical state of the prisoner: on 12 May 1916, James Connolly was executed by firing squad as one of the leaders of the Easter 1916 uprising in Dublin. Because of wounds sustained in the fighting he was unable to stand, so he was tied to a chair.
The people of Dublin mocked and spat on the defeated insurgents as they were marched to prison. But the execution of 16 of the leaders of the uprising changed public opinion. Especially, Connolly’s execution, tied to a chair, began a wave of support for the previously despised insurrectionists, and this wave grew into the movement for Irish liberation culminating in the War of Independence only three years later.
Execution tied to a chair, or in a wheelchair can have unexpected results. Trump knows nothing about Connolly, but he’s enough of a showman to see that the comrades of the condemned will be the winners if the execution is livestreamed for all the world to see.
Large numbers of people remember something that happened on 16 November 1700 – more than 300 years ago. They remember it not because it was a hanging, but because the condemned man played a tune and danced aroon, below the gallows tree. James Macpherson is a hero because of this.
We are not to have the opportunity of watching an execution livestreamed. We have escaped barbarism. Have we? Why is it barbaric to execute someone – kill them – in public, but not barbaric to kill them behind walls where no one needs to see? The barbarism is the death penalty itself not the manner in which it is carried out.
When a person is executed (killed) they are executed (killed) by command of the state. In the US the command may come from the federal government or a state government. The state may make this command because capital punishment is legal according to federal law. When a state executes someone it does so only because federal law permits it to do so. Any enactment of federal law is an act of the people – We, the people – any enactment of state law is also an act of all the people, We, the people, because state law depends on federal law.
Whenever a person is executed (killed) according to law, state or federal, it is We, the people who give the command. We order the killing of people according to law. Why is it barbaric for us to watch the consequences of our command?
Long before this particular case, actually raising the possibility of public executions, I had thought that executions needed to be public just to confront us, We, the people, with the consequences of our act. What will seeing our own act enacted, seeing an individual, unique, killed by our own act do to us?
Experts speaking of this case have warned, on the one hand, that it could cause serious trauma for many individuals and especially for children; on the other that it may augment the violence of those with violent tendencies. All this seems reasonable, but missing the point.
So: watching an execution may be traumatic (I know it would be very traumatic for me). Is this necessarily a bad thing? That execution happens whether I see it or not. I commanded it. Must I be spared from seeing my command enacted?
Watching an execution may incite violent feelings in one who is already violent. Yes. But how much will the sight cause an increase in violent actions? Violent impulses do not depend on external stimuli. And then, the actual sight of violence – seeing another human die – may cause revulsion even in ones who adulated violence. Many MAGA people have recoiled from the actual violence on the streets carried out by ICE and CBP.
Whatever we make of these calculations, if public executions are barbarism, executions tidily hidden away behind walls and bars are barbarism repressed. Repression is a dangerous game. And hiding away of executions is an expression of guilt.
What to do? Make executions public, show our barbarism for all to see. Stay with what we have, sweep the barbarism under the bed and wait for the return of the repressed. Abolish capital punishment.
Abolishing capital punishment isn’t that hard, many of our states have done it. All members of the European Union have done it.
Macpherson, knowing he was to be hanged, spent his last night writing a song that he would sing, play, and dance aroon below the gallows tree, out there in the light of day. The song, the dancing, the playing were his defiance under the gallows and the rope and seen by the people. He meant to be remembered as he was at this his last moment. He is remembered. His song is still sung.
Being killed is not good for the one killed. I think, though I don’t know, that being killed out in the light of day is preferable to being killed in a windowless room deliberately devoid of anything that makes a room a human space.
If you had a song to play and sing and dance which would you prefer?
No matter what they have done, the one on the gallows, before the firing squad, in the electric chair, restrained to receive the lethal injection, deserves a final utterance. The state owes them this, and so We, the people also. We impose on them the ultimate abolition, we send them into nothingness, we silence their voice forever. Their right to speak in that last moment is absolute.
But how can this happen in a windowless room deliberately shut away from the living world? The word of the condemned is public, it answers to the condemnation by We, the people, it is addressed to us.
So executions must be public, out in the open air before We, the people. But public executions are barbaric (so we are told). Let’s recapitulate: executions in a windowless room deep inside a prison shield We, the people from the consequences of our acts, and deny the condemned their right of a final utterance. Public executions – that allow this final utterance – are barbaric. No way out …
… unless we abolish capital punishment. And there it is.
Love and solidarity,
Bobby
The Federal government no longer exists.