Dahr Bat(talli)on Dream
by OXZ (richard martin oxman)
Companion piece to http://oxtogrind.org/archive/408
Dedicated to James Longley and the widow of Tareq Ayoub, both of whom contributed to One Dance: The People’s Summit http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey02102004.html

“If the Americans can shoot every child walking in the street, it means the end of this planet.” — An Iraqi man in his early forties exclaiming with his hands in the air… from Dahr Jamail’s 2007 Beyond the Green Zone. Italics mine.

This article isn’t for everyone. Some might want to immediately scroll down to where it says Dahr Baton Dream, skipping the hard-to-categorize opening.

In France, the traditional punishment for regicide (whether attempted or completed) under the ancien régime (known in French as ecartèlement) is often described as “quartering”, though it in fact has little to do with the English punishment. The process was as follows: the regicide offender would be first tortured with red-hot pincers, then the hand with which the crime was committed would be burnt with sulphur and molten lead and wax and boiling oil poured into the wounds. The quartering would be accomplished by the attachment of the victim’s limbs to horses, who would then tear them away from the body. Finally, the often still-living torso would be burnt. The character of de Sade, in Peter Weiss’ great 1963 play The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of Monsieur de Sade, provides a stupendously moving account of the torture of Damiens (along these lines). But it pales next to what I have in mind.

The torture I feebly try to describe below will be… much worse than the above. So that the audience’s recoiling in horror will not stop once they leave the theatre. The images — it is intended — searing the memory in eidetic convulsions. Almost incessantly. Beyond PTSD?

We are not talking about images of coffins coming home. Nor are we talking about sad soldiers talking their way through 20/20 coverage of military prostheses, the difficulties of acclimating to having had limbs severed. No, (with TOSCA, http://oxtogrind.org/archive/364) the twelve unaffiliated non-politician citizens who will serve the California public in lieu of a single self-serving careerist — for the first time in history — will be driving home imagery forcefully, creatively, repeatedly — daily — for the first time in history — in such a way that not only will U.S. wars be ended, the seeds for ending all war on earth will truly be planted once and for all.

That’s the payoff. That’s why TOSCA is worth the heartbeats required. Accusations of titillation and violent pornography would simply enable us to get the message across even better… as the subject would never leave public consciousness.

Some people do not have much of an imagination*. And a lot of people only feel comfy with straight up prose. Don’t, by choice, pick up poetry, don’t easily pick up on the lyrical in life. Are unsettled by non-linear thought, or… inexplicable twists and turns.

*This is a problem, ultimately, because war is so much a product of the unimaginative mind-set. [See James Hillman's must read, A Terrible Love of War.]

[Pause.]

If I told someone that I was going to reproduce the crowds that gathered on February 15, 2003, the anti-war demonstrators… some unimaginative people would not be impressed. Even if I said that I was going to put together a raunchy rendezvous of that size in California! Some would still yawn. Yawn in the face of the ambitious tone, unimpressed by a claim for doing so… again… at this stage in history… in California! With no money! [According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of the 15th and 16th. Others claim the range was anywhere from 8 to 30 million!.] Some people simply never got past the Cliff Notes version of Don Quixote.

That’s why it doesn’t bother me that some people aren’t impressed with the means and goals of TOSCA.

Dahr Baton Dream

Somehow Dahr Jamail hands me a slender wooden conductor’s stick.

I rise and tap on a nearby podium, but the crowd of musicians in front of me are doing various things with their instruments, everything but preparing to play them. Tap, tap, tap. Zero. The musicians are all talking animatedly with one another or acting oddly distracted by children who are in the rear of the auditorium.

The children are dark-skinned for the most part, but they are being slaughtered by soldiers in white clown-cake makeup who surround them. Throats are being cut. Very dark-skinned soldiers then enter the scene (in slow motion), wildly chopping off the limbs of youngsters with machetes. And the reality of the atrocities settles in. Butts of rifles are breaking open brains, spilling vile-looking matter all over the plush seats and exquisitely carpeted floor. Eyes are poked out. Very loud noises make others fall down helplessly, holding their ears. Ears are very deliberately punctured with sharp instruments, teeth knocked out inadvertently. Screams envelop everything. The graphic bloody detail dominates the marrow of each passing second, testicles pulped. Children, lying amongst entrails, are stomped on whilst I feverishly attempt to get the attention of the musicians. I fancy that our music might make a difference. But no one is paying attention to me. I watch, horrified, as children are forced to undergo singular torture. Anal abominations are cheered, with select soldiers acting quite indifferent to the atrocities they commit. Midst mindless twenty-something laughter, children hold onto one another, suffocate one another, vomit and defecate all over one another. Intermittently the children are forced to take part in unspeakable acts. [Pause.] Then… like before the onset of the blatant violence… the children still clinging to life are –once again — starved. Everyone… for the first time, perhaps… can see the prolonged horror of starvation. On the side, medical supplies are trampled underfoot… whilst newborns — held by their feet upside down — are swung over vats full of what seem to be depleted uranium dust.

The suffering seems to go on interminably. The thrust of this disgusting scenario continues unabated in silence. As it actually has been going on for quite some time in the real world. As it continues, in fact, in our world.

I can imagine a great, heartfelt film being made which focuses on such dramatized horror. Staged, but every bit as real as some of the best (acted) footage from, say, Battle of Algiers (albeit, in infinitely greater detail). Horror which delineates callous torture and arrogant murder, unbearable screams penetrating the skin of all who watch, searing the souls of every single audience member. Unforgettable gratuitous violence. Resonating in a way that popular images of WWII Holocaust victims could never be… comparable, never match kinesthetically, viscerally. Live children being subjected to the worst imaginable treatment. [Political ideology will protect noone.]

Someone takes my baton, and hands me a billy club.

I use it to try once again to capture the attention of the musicians, tapping… tapping… tapping for attention. And, to make a long story short, I do finally succeed in getting one and all to pick up their instruments and play. To play enthusiastically, with wild abandon.

The music is beautiful, and the soldiers stop their abominations. The children are mostly all dead or dying, the children in the blood-soaked auditorium. [Pause.] But our music makes the horror cease for the moment.

And that’s how I see the film ending. With beautiful music.

And someone else taking the baton.

[Pause.]

Sometimes organizing for TOSCA feels like I’m in front of very fine musicians who are not paying attention.

Richard can be reached at tosca.2010[atatat]yahoo.com Some of his background can be had at http://oxtogrind.org/archive/378.