CommonSpace columnist David Carr reflects on the power of communities and why they don’t have to wait to devolve power downwards in Scotland
HERE’S how it goes with activists. You walk into a Tesco Metro to buy some juice. Someone else comes in and walks past. They’re sporting a clutch of badges. You spot Yes, No To TTIP. The signs and rituals of Yes. You pass them again as you walk along the refrigerated cabinet.
“Nice badges!”
“Thanks. I spotted your Common Weal.”
“Oh! You’ve got a RIC one.”
“Aye. I’m in RIC East Kilbride.”
“Then you must know Craig.”
“Aye!”
“Yeah – I’ve met Craig a couple of times. Saw him in George Square the other week at the refugees vigil. And you must know Graeme and Donna and Sean from East Ren Common Weal.”
“Aye! They’ve been to the RIC meetings.”
This is what goes by the fancy name ‘networking’ – and it’s very important. It’s how we’ll organise our way to real change.
Underpinning the independence movement is a solid framework of personal relationships. Engaged people – engaged with politics, engaged with one another. This is an unbeatable resource.
Looked at one way, our movement might be called a bubble – a small group of people who keep each others’ company, independently of the real world. We should be cautious of this.
There are whole swathes of the population – all those who we need on board for independence – who haven’t heard of RIC, Rise, The Common Weal, Women for Independence.
But does that matter? Because underpinning the independence movement is a solid framework of personal relationships. Engaged people – engaged with politics, engaged with one another. This is an unbeatable resource.
In a recent article for Bella Caledonia , Jonathon Shafi pointed out that one of the most exhilarating aspects of indyref was the number of lasting friendships made.
I can attest to this myself. This makes it difficult for opponents of independence to get a foothold – the circles of activism are already saturated. It also provides us with a venue to explore and develop political ideas.
More importantly, it gives us a solid foundation to build on for the activism we will need to pursue into the future. There is a common phenomenon of activist burnout.
There’s no denying it, we have some hard work ahead and we will need to make sure we look after our mental health and wellbeing. Being among friends will be vital to the task ahead. Friends who enjoy boring each other with politics.
And we must not ignore the role of social media in all of this. Face-to-face interaction works best, of course, but we will all have indy friends who we have either not yet met or who we first met online long before getting to know properly on a physical level.
There’s no denying it, we have some hard work ahead and we will need to make sure we look after our mental health and wellbeing. Being among friends will be vital to the task ahead.
So, for example, if you’re going to an event you can arrange to meet. But really – you should just arrange to meet for a coffee anyway. Do it.
The genuine benefit of social media is as a technology for organising. It helps with a lot of the boring admin stuff. Create groups. Join events. Use it to provide the infrastructure to bring people together.
We must not get above ourselves, though. There are – of course – many other networks in real life, from book groups to five-a-side leagues to church coffee mornings.
Soul music enthusiasts who recognise each other by their ‘Keep The Faith’ patches, John Green fans by their hand-made DFTBA sneakers. Since the dawn of the internet there have forums where people as diverse as Douglas Adams fans, online poker players, photographers and goths who have met and organised their lives online, established close real-life bonds.
A present example is in the quite staggering self-organisation and improvisational skills that community based groups are using to organise refugee support. The combination of personal networks and Facebook is delivering tangible, physical good.
Now let’s level up. Imagine taking this activism and organisation to a national scale. Can we harness people’s innate social nature and the human skill of improvised self organisation?
Can we inject some good political ideas that will allow people to build a fairer Scotland? What would a Scotland run – outrageous thought – by people cooperating at local levels actually look like?
There is currently a gulf in Scotland, evidenced by the staggering ratio of people per elected representatives – too few people holding power over too many people.
Lesley Riddoch is fond of pointing out a disparity between the Nordic style of government and that in Scotland. What looks normal in the Nordic countries is for people to participate in government, for decision-making to take place at a local level – and to be able to look your politicians in the eye.
There is currently a gulf in Scotland, evidenced by the staggering ratio of people per elected representatives – too few people holding power over too many people.
In small nations, politicians can walk among their people. The politicians know the people. They are the people. Participating in government is an ordinary thing.
Can this be so in Scotland? Well – I could show you my selfie collection.
If we were to gain independence tomorrow, frankly we would not yet be ready for government of the people, by the people. Our structures are too top down.
But we don’t have to wait for power to be devolved from on high. We have ample evidence that we can trust in people’s ability to create structures from the bottom up – using technology to support themselves.
It is by no means a stretch of the imagination to suggest that we could reinvent our system of self-government very quickly indeed.
Fundamentally, we can and should trust in people’s ability to collectively run their own affairs. In so many ordinary ways, we are already doing so – when we are allowed.
The Common Weal Book of Ideas points to lots of fresh ideas in this area, such as localised, participatory democracy. These ideas are not just in there because they correspond to some mere, theoretical, democratic ideal.
They make complete practical sense in terms of making Scotland a better place. Why? Because those who are closest to problems turn out to be best placed to solve them.
Fundamentally, we can and should trust in people’s ability to collectively run their own affairs. In so many ordinary ways, we are already doing so – when we are allowed.
This same truth has long been noted in industry. In Scottish history, a pioneering experiment demonstrated that improvements in shipbuilding were achieved when managers cooperated with workers – who actually knew the practical details of shipbuilding.
(And as a sidenote – the shipyards were communities – networks – demonstrated still by the self-organisation that goes on to look after retired workers).
Modern management techniques rely on a high level of worker participation to improve quality and productivity. Hierarchies are flattened, workers organise themselves into flexible workgroups, support from software infrastructure is the norm.
For employers, this delivers – many world class enterprises use these approaches. For the workers, their jobs are enriched and their terms and conditions better. We are talking bottom line.
What all of this reflects – self-organisation by activists, by soul music aficionados, by industry, by local governments – is two innate human qualities: improvisation and sociability.
Our ability to get together and improvise our way around problems is why there are more of us than any kind of large animal. This is our natural way of being – and we enjoy it.
We already have the talent to build the Scotland we want. Ordinary people are capable of organising themselves. There are some sound political ideas on offer. We’re ready to do this. Together.
Picture: CommonSpace