In Sneepland
So what were we fearty goats of Unionists getting in a stooshie about today?
This on the Scots Language Centre, a site where the bairns are directed to learn about the Scots tongue:-
Of course we muzerable Nawbags’ faces were trippin’ us. We did our own sums. 1.6 million of the population voted for independence while the remaining 3.9 million either voted against independence, didn’t vote, or never had a vote.
So mibbe the dominie that scribed that was showing the weans how you can mess with numbers to tell what story you wanntae – something that we grown ups learned in the referendum especially with economic predictions of an indy Scotland involving the price of oil.
I was just starting to get a blog post going on the following lines:-
1. A Scots Language Centre which gets the folk into border ballads and Burns and all the sangs out there and James Hogg is a very good thing but; (2) why does everything cultural have to be politicised towards the same result i.e. being Scottish=being Nationalist; (3) with a caveat that though the Centre may be funded by the Scottish government it doesn’t follow that some apparatchik at Holyrood writes every entry any more than they check out every script produced by Creative Scotland (though I bet pro-Unionist projects wouldn’t get much sympathy). And the Natz are control freaks keen to grasp their mitts round broadcasting and the universities.
There was the usual Twittering including one from Ruth Davidson:-
and then Tom Martin from the Daily Express got in touch with the director of the Centre and now the page reads:-
There were the usual apologies for “causing offence”.
To be fair it might have been one wee chappie/wifey at the Language Centre making a bit of mischief and now I even find it funny that s/he sneaked in a cheeky political point among the language studies.
But today I spittit with despyte (to quote the great Scots poet Gavin Douglas) and Lord, you have to keep yir e’en on those Gnats. They’re a flock of corbies with beaks of blood desperate to feed on our unionist corse.
Update:- the Scots Language Centre is a den of nationalists.
Scotland – where 45% scold 55% for being feardy goats
The referendum being all over now and the Noes (or the “forces of sanity and reason” as we call ourselves) having it, I have to thank Shiraz Socialist and Tendance Coatesy for sticking to their socialist principles. The contortions that the left and Greens went through to defend their acting as troops for the Scottish nationalist movement have to be seen – well you can see them here, in an excellent round up by Bob of Brockley.
Also Shiraz Socialist’s die-hard enemies, Socialist Unity, have stayed staunch. Here’s an excellent piece by Tommy Kane.
Reflecting on the referendum campaign it’s clear that it’s degenerated into the most polarising, divisive and diversionary political event of our times. Countering this view, some socialists in the Yes camp suggest that the campaign has engendered hope, inspired a revitalisation of left politics and saw record levels of political engagement. These supporters pronounce independence will bring freedom from subjugation and a renewal of democracy, others proclaim it will allows us escape from the supposedly different Scottish and English political cultures, while others assert firmly that a Yes vote can go some way to ‘smashing the British state’ (incidentally not at the top of people’s concerns on the doorsteps). Amongst some there also resides a belief that, at the very least, independence will bring social democracy and a fairer and more just Scotland, because, whisper it, ‘we are more progressive up here’. In order to sustain a clean and seamless Yes campaign these left proponents of this missive appear to have suspended their critical faculties, especially in relation to the SNP’s White Paper, and whether they like it or not, have encouraged a discourse that has appears to have focused predominately on the liberation of ‘Scottish nationhood’.
Greens went weird as well.
Scotland wants to invest in renewable energy, but the money for investment will inevitably have to come from further investment and money raised through oil and gas.
AND YET – one of three key principles of the Green Party is to reduce “dependence on fossil fuels”. Scottish Greens too say they want to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
So why are the Green Party supporting an outcome that makes a nation even more dependent on exploiting its oil and gas resources?
I wrote a piece of verse about the contradictory times we found ourselves in:-
And so ends the old order,
With Indyref fever full boil.
Lefties campaign for a border,
Greenies shout Yay for the oil.
This was picked up Helen Dale, a Facebook friend, who quoted it in her piece on the indyref in the libertarian magazine Reason.
As a corporate lawyer in Edinburgh, Helen would have advised her clients to vote No for prudential motives. However as she has now just moved to Australia to act as adviser to a senator in the Liberal Democrat Party, she has backed an iScotland because of its potential for a free market economy.
I hope “yes” wins the day, because I also think Scotland’s robust civic culture would make a fair fist of independence. The socialism would evaporate, sure, but the country would not fall prey to the “resource curse” so common among small, oil-rich nations. That Scotland gifted the world the skeptical Enlightenment would stand it in good stead. Its current inhabitants may prove themselves worthy heirs to Adam Smith, David Hume, and all the rest.
The Yes campaign was everything to everybody. As Ewan Morrison said the members campaigned to:-
Get rid of Trident, raise the minimum wage, lower corporation tax, promote gay and lesbian rights, create a world leading Green economy, exploit oil to the full and become a world leading petro-chemical economy, nationalise the banks, nationalise BP, be more attractive to foreign investment.
So now what happens? Yessers are re-grouping and now some have badged themselves “45”, in memory of their percentage share of the vote. ’45 is a bizarre name for a Scottish nationalist group to give themselves.
Don’t they remember the last ’45 in Scottish history and its ultimate end?
Radical Independence, one of the left routes into nationalist politicking, are holding a conference.
The conference was launched earlier this year with a statement signed by dozens of campaigners, trade unionists, cultural figures and politicians, calling for the creation of an extra-parliamentary independence campaign that puts forward a radical, progressive vision of an independent Scotlan
Meanwhile the Greens have increased their membership and I would guess the SNP itself, however defeated they may seem to be, did run a campaign that pulled up the independence vote from lagging behind to scaring us shitless, may be gathering in old Labour supporters and will still be a power, especially if Nicola Sturgeon is as an effective leader as Salmond.
The Yessers are certain that all their newly energised population are not going to go away and that they can build a new independence movement. That would be appalling for Scottish politics, since the Noes, who have found this refereendum an ordeal which they have vowed will never be repeated, will then vote to keep the indy lot out. I cannot imagine anything less constructive to useful politics than a large chunk of the people voting primarily on this particular issue.
However perhaps it will just fizzle out. According to the Very Public Sociologist:-
Surely this view has been rendered null and void by the intrusion of many millions into the Scottish debates? Unfortunately, for all the networked organisations, the radical independence outfits, and non-affiliated people this is a movement under the undisputed leadership of the SNP. Its reach is powered by a soft left-populist rejection of Westminster and, despite the hopes I have for it, is likely to simply demobilise in the event of a Yes victory. I say this not because it’s convenient, but by looking at the mobilisation of similar movements elsewhere. Remember the mass movement against Le Pen in 2002? Where did it go? What happened to the defeated movement for Quebec independence? Or what about the mobilisation of the grassroots for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign? Even huge working class mobilisations under ultra-correct revolutionary leaderships can quickly fade, such as the ‘victorious’ anti-Poll Tax movement. With radical groups present but by no means hegemonic, I can see Yes heading the same way. I understand you may feel different, but enthusiasm in the absence of a unifying organisation can dim very quickly. Once the job is done, if the job gets done, what next? How can the momentum be maintained at the moment its SNP lynchpin works to shut it down?
Yessers now say they will be mocked when they sing what has become Scotland’s anthem, Flower of Scotland, especially the lines “to be a nation again”. Well, perhaps they could dump it. It’s an embarrassing dirge, with terrible lyrics, remembering a victory over a particularly weak English king 700 years ago. It is even more embarrassing in that it was written in the late 1960s, not the 1700s.
At the opening of the new devolved Holyrood Parliament Burns’ great hymn to democratic humanity was sung by Sheena Wellington. Couldn’t we adopt the last verse as the anthem? The ideas behind it are not nationalistic but universal and noble.
Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a’ that,)
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.
Shiraz Socialist 